Tata and Kerala in talks for ₹10,000 cr investment in shipbuilding; state to provide land

Chief Minister V D Satheesan has said that the Tata Group was in consultations with Kerala to invest ₹10,000 crore in a shipbuilding project anchored along the Vizhinjam coast.

"Tata is ready to invest in shipbuilding, and we are going to provide land for the ₹10,000 crore project it has proposed," the Chief Minister told American News Agency Bloomberg on July 15. He said that discussions were on and that the deal would be wrapped up in one month. "After three months, there should be delivery in this area," the CM said.

Mission Samudra, which the CM had unveiled in his Budget Speech on June 19, wants to develop Kerala as a 'Port City' that will seamlessly integrate road, sea, rail, and inland waterway networks with manufacturing zones and greenfield cities.

Along with the value addition of Kerala's mineral wealth, shipbuilding is another port-based industry into which Kerala wants investments to flow under Mission Samudra. 

Government sources said that the controlled release of information on the Tata proposal was an attempt to encourage investors who could have become watchful after Kerala government's highly publicised disapproval of the manner in which Adani Vizhinjam Private Ports Limited went about striking a deal with Mediterranean Shipping Company.

Satheesan was eager to play down the controversy. "We have not made any objections. We have only expressed our dissatisfaction that we were not informed before they approached the SEBI. But within 24 hours, they submitted a letter to the state government, and within a span of two days, they submitted a revised letter, too. It is just a simple problem," Satheesan told Bloomberg. 

Though details of the Tata proposal are yet to be revealed, it has to first secure the Centre's approval. On the day it was revealed that Kerala was working for a deal with the Tata Group, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) accorded in-principle approval to two strategic maritime infrastructure projects: a greenfield shipbuilding cluster in Porbandar district of Gujarat and a state-of-the-art ship repair facility at Vadinar in Gulf of Kutch, under the Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SbDS).

The second project, the ₹1570-crore ship repair facility at Vadinar, Gujarat, will be jointly developed by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and Deendayal Port Authority. The project had earlier received approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on May 5, 2026, and has now secured in-principle approval under the Shipbuilding Development Scheme for 25 per cent financial assistance on eligible capital infrastructure. The expansion will include a 650-metre jetty, two large floating dry docks, workshops and supporting marine infrastructure.

CSL is the first Greenfield and presently the most modern shipbuilding yard in India.