Goa Shipyard to construct 2 Pollution Control Vessels for Indian Coast Guard

• Goa Shipyard will construt two Pollution Control Vessels (PCVs) for the Indian Coast Guard at a cost of about Rs 583 crore
• MoD signed the contract under 'Buy Indian – Indigenously Designed Developed & Manufactured (Buy Indian-IDDM)'

New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence has signed a contract with the Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) for the construction of two Pollution Control Vessels (PCVs) for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) at a cost of about Rs 583 crore. The contract has been signed between the Ministry of Defence and GSL on Tuesday.

According to the Ministry of Defence, these special role ships will be indigenously designed, developed and built by GSL. The acquisition is under 'Buy Indian – Indigenously Designed Developed & Manufactured (Buy Indian-IDDM)', the highest priority category for defence capital procurements. The acquisition will significantly augment the capability of ICG to respond to Oil spill disasters at sea and also enhance Pollution Response (PR) efficiency. These two vessels are scheduled for delivery by November 2024 and May 2025 respectively.

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At present, ICG has three PCVs in its fleet at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Porbander to carry out dedicated Pollution Surveillance, Oil spill monitoring and response operations in Indian EEZ and around islands. The new PCVs planned are for pollution response requirements in Eastern and the ecologically sensitive Andaman & Nicobar Regions. The vessels, with the capability of operating helicopter on-board, will have many advanced features with modern PR equipment of niche technology for containing, recovering and dispersing the marine oil spill.

While meeting the objectives of AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, the contract would further boost the indigenous shipbuilding capability and increase employment opportunities in the shipbuilding sector that involves around 200 MSME vendors, a Defence Ministry statement said.

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