Why shipbuilding needs a sea change to fulfil India's 2047 dreams

India paid $109 billion in sea freight to foreign operators in 2021-22, and last year stood vulnerable to international price volatility and impact of sanctions on Russia during the geopolitical crise

Nearly a decade after losing key historical sites of the Indus Valley civilisation to Pakistan in the Partition, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), with the famed and later debated work of its former director S R Rao, found in its excavation in Gujarat that the people of Lothal had constructed the world’s oldest known dock around 4,000 years ago — in the Harappan era.

 

Maritime historians argue that ancient India possessed advanced shipbuilding, berthing, and repair capabilities — among the most notable being the stitched shipbuilding method, where ships were constructed by stitching together planks made of teak with