Inside India’s push to build, own, finance more ships

India’s maritime strategy is entering a new phase, with the government and industry pushing beyond ports and logistics toward shipbuilding, vessel ownership, maritime finance and strategic control over the country’s trade routes.

- Libin Chacko Kurian

For decades, India’s maritime ambitions largely revolved around ports, privatisation, cargo handling, and logistics corridors. Now, the conversation is shifting toward something deeper: building ships, owning ships, financing ships, manufacturing containers, strengthening coastal shipping and creating a maritime ecosystem that reduces dependence on foreign fleets.

For instance, in 2023, the government unveiled the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047, a long-term blueprint aimed at turning India into one of the world’s top five shipbuilding nations and expanding domestic shipbuilding capacity to around 4.5 million gross tonnes (GT) from the current 0.072 million GT. In the 2025 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a ₹250 billion Maritime Development Fund to ease long-term financing constraints for shipbuilders, shipowners, and maritime infrastructure projects, alongside customs duty exemptions and incentives for shipbuilding and recycling. Later in September 2025, the Union Cabinet approved a broader ₹697 billion maritime package built around four pillars: the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme, the Shipbuilding Development Scheme, greenfield and brownfield shipyard expansion, and skilling and ecosystem development.

Long overdue change

The Q4 & full year FY26 earnings conference call of Shipping Corporation of India [SCI] in May 2026 offers the indication to what India is attempting to build an integrated maritime ecosystem spanning vessel ownership, shipbuilding, container shipping, insurance, energy logistics, and strategic fleet capacity.

“There are two clear-cut priorities for the Government of India,” said SCI Chairman and Managing Director B.K. Tyagi during the call. “One is to have the ship construction now done in India, especially the commercial big vessels. Parallelly, that Indian tonnage should increase.”