GRSE Navratna status was marked in Kolkata on 17 July 2026 with the release of a Special Cover with Cancellation and My Stamp, commemorating the shipyard's elevation to Navratna rank. Shri Ashok Kumar, Chief Postmaster General, West Bengal Circle, released the cover in the presence of senior officials of Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers and India Post.

GRSE kept to its habit of drawing in staff across every grade. Its senior-most employee, security havildar Bikash Das, took part alongside its youngest officer, assistant manager Rup Pratim Ghatak.

GRSE Navratna status and the numbers behind it

The Department of Public Enterprises, under the Ministry of Finance, accorded GRSE Navratna status in June 2026, citing the yard's steady financial and physical performance over successive years. The Special Cover, issued jointly with India Post, turns that decision into a piece of philatelic record.

The figures behind the upgrade show the scale of the change. Revenue from Operations rose from Rs 1,754 crore in FY 2021-22 to Rs 7,002 crore in FY 2025-26, and Profit After Tax over the same window climbed from Rs 190 crore to Rs 748 crore. A Navratna label brings wider financial and operational autonomy, including larger investment ceilings that no longer need case-by-case clearance, and that headroom is what the yard now means to draw on.

A six-decade record on the slipway

Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers has handed over more than 800 marine platforms in 66 years, among them 118 warships for the Navy, the Coast Guard and friendly foreign navies. The company puts that at the highest warship tally of any Indian shipyard.

Its record runs back to the start of indigenous naval construction. GRSE delivered INS Ajay, the country's first indigenously built warship, to the Navy in 1961, a year after it was declared a Defence Public Sector Undertaking. It also built CGS Barracuda for Mauritius, the country's first ever warship export.

Eight warships in a year, and a full order book

The yard delivered eight warships in 2025-26. Three of them entered service on a single day, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned INS Dunagiri, INS Sanshodhak and INS Agray at Kolkata on 21 June 2026. Dunagiri belongs to the Project 17A stealth frigate class, Sanshodhak is a Survey Vessel (Large), and Agray is one of the anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft the Navy has inducted through the year.

Beyond deliveries, the book is full. GRSE is building nine warships, four of them Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels, along with 30 other platforms. Among the latter are 12 Multi-Purpose Vessels for a German buyer, work the company sets within its Make in India and Make for the World lines. Four research vessels are on order too, for the Naval Physical Oceanographic Laboratory, the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research and the Geological Survey of India.


Capacity plans after the upgrade

With the new status, GRSE plans investments to lift capacity and widen operations. The company says it has already started brownfield and greenfield projects to take on more naval and commercial shipbuilding work.