From Hooghly workshop to global titan

A century after its humble riverside beginnings, GRSE is leveraging AI and robotics to spearhead India's maritime goals

- BY K. SUNIL THOMAS

It may perhaps be one of the lesser known milestones in independent India's history in general—14 years after freedom, the nation got a warship built in the country.

The first seaward defence boat, named 'Ajay, was delivered in 1961 by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), a Kolkata company that started off about a century ago as a workshop for steam boats on the Hooghly, and had been taken over by the Government of India just the year before.

GRSE and Ajay reached a full circle last year, when in July, the shipyard launched the last in its Ajay series— an antisubmarine warfare shallow water craft.