The Machilipatnam ASW SWC launch at Cochin Shipyard Limited on 29 July 2026 sent the seventh of eight anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft the yard is building for the Indian Navy into the water. Mrs Goolrukh Anand launched the ship, yard number BY 529, in the presence of Vice Adm Atul Anand, Additional Secretary, Department of Military Affairs.

Senior officials of the Indian Navy, Cochin Shipyard Limited and other guests were present at the ceremony in Kochi.


A name from the Andhra coast

The craft carries the name of Machilipatnam, the old port town in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. Its maritime record runs deep, a centre of trade along India's eastern seaboard for centuries.

Where the Machilipatnam ASW SWC launch sits in the Mahe class

Machilipatnam is the seventh of the eight shallow water anti-submarine craft Cochin Shipyard is building, a class named for its lead ship, Mahe. The Ministry of Defence signed the contract for the eight vessels with the yard on 30 April 2019. A matching batch of eight is under construction at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, taking the full order to sixteen.

Mahe, the first of the Cochin boats, went to the Navy in October 2025. Malvan, the second of the class, was commissioned at Karwar in July. The line replaces the older Abhay-class corvettes that served the fleet from the late 1980s.

Indigenous content above 80 percent

Indigenous content in the ship runs beyond 80 percent by Cochin Shipyard's account, a level in line with the rest of the class. The Machilipatnam ASW SWC launch keeps the project inside the Aatmanirbhar Bharat frame, alongside the Navy's other home-built lines such as the Project 17A stealth frigate that joined the fleet this month.

What the ship is built to do

Machilipatnam is fitted for underwater surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and low-intensity maritime operations, and it carries a mine warfare capability.

In service it will add to coastal defence and to the Navy's maritime domain awareness, the running picture the force holds of activity across its waters.

Working the shallows

Craft of this type operate close in, in the coastal belt where frigates and destroyers have little sea room to work. Screening harbours and coastal approaches against submarines is the job the ASW SWC line was ordered to take on.