The vessel (Yard 257) is constructed by the Alock Ashdown (Gujarat) Limited, the flagship ship-building company of the Gujarat government.
AAGL is building six state-of-the-art catamaran hydrographic survey vessels for the Indian Navy, an official release said.
The company secured the order by winning the competitive tender, involving public sector as well as private sector shipyards, issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), it said.
AAGL will be the first Indian shipyard, outside of the large MoD shipyards, to deliver ships to the Indian Navy flying the white ensign, the release claimed.
Built as per stringent Naval requirements, the primary role of the vessels is to carry out coastal hydrographic survey and limited oceanographic survey, the release said.
According to the release, the vessels will also be capable of limited coastal defence role in an emergency and will also have a limited search and rescue capability and limited ocean research capability.
The Indian Navy has chosen to induct a vessel with a catamaran hull form for the first time and will be one of the very few select navies in the world to operate such sophisticated platforms, the release said.
Displacing about 500 tonnes, the catamarans are about 53 metre in length, 16 metre in breadth and with a very low draft of about 2.2 metre which allows shallow water operation, the release added.
