In the first part of this series, you read that the true strength of a navy at sea is determined not merely by the number of missiles and ships, but by ‘persistent presence’ at the right time and right place. But can the idea of forward presence and strategic doctrines make India’s vast maritime borders completely impregnable?
The answer is absolutely not. Because any plan to establish dominance on the ocean waves ultimately rests on the defense budget table, the country’s economic capability, and the heavy costs involved in constructing warships. Until paper strategies are backed by strong financial power, every security claim remains incomplete.
Therefore, in this second part, we will examine those practical and financial aspects that determine India’s naval strength. Here we will understand how every single rupee spent in the navy accelerates the country’s economy, known in as the ‘Economic Multiplier Effect’.
We will also analyse the bitter truth of how adequate India’s current naval budget is against China’s rapidly growing naval power, and where ‘Capability Gaps’ or performance deficiencies remain in our shipbuilding. This section will tell you how India can financially and strategically turn its 2035 and 2047 maritime vision into reality.
In the context of the Indian Navy, this question becomes all the more critical because India possesses a coastline of approximately 11,098 kilometres, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of nearly 2.4 million square kilometres, and maritime trade routes through which about 90% of the country’s trade by volume passes.
For India, the ocean is not a distant battleground. It is the primary pathway for the country’s energy security, crude oil, LPG/LNG supplies, and the entire economy. If piracy increases in a maritime corridor, shipping insurance becomes expensive due to war, or military tension arises at a chokepoint, it directly impacts the pocket of the Indian citizen and the nation’s economy.
That is why the navy is not merely a force preparing for war, but it is the country’s greatest economic insurance. And the value of this insurance becomes clear when a major crisis arises on the sea routes.
The real test of any country’s naval ambitions lies in its budget allocation. According to official figures from the Government of India, the Indian Navy’s total budget has grown from ₹49,623 crore in FY 2020-21 to ₹1,03,548 crore in FY 2025-26. During the same period, the Navy’s share in overall defence expenditure has increased from 15% to 21%.
The most significant growth has been observed in capital expenditure, which is used to procure new warships, submarines, aircraft, weapons, and naval infrastructure. This budget has risen from ₹26,688 crore in 2020-21 to approximately ₹62,546 crore in 2025-26.
This increase is significant, but modern naval planning is not just about ‘spending more money’. The real challenge is determining the order of priorities:
In a balanced navy, one cannot pick one of these and abandon another. An aircraft carrier is vulnerable without escort ships, a destroyer needs logistics tankers, and a submarine cannot demonstrate its full capability without an extensive surveillance network. Therefore, the core motto of the 2035 strategy must be not a single platform, but the complete architecture.
The shape of the Indian Navy in 2035 cannot be viewed in isolation from the activities of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). According to the U.S. Department of Defence’s 2024 ‘China Military Power Report‘ (CMPR), the Chinese Navy possesses over 370 battle-force platforms. The same report estimated that this number would reach approximately 435 ships by 2030.
However, the threat to India is not just this figure. The strategic geography of India and China is completely different. China’s primary focus is centered on the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. India’s primary responsibility is the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Therefore, India has no need to blindly copy China’s total ship numbers.
The real difference lies in the shipbuilding velocity of China’s shipyards. China continuously builds dozens of ships of the same design, which reduces cost for its shipyards, provides stable orders to suppliers, and inducts new ships rapidly into the fleet. This industrial edge later transforms into a strategic advantage. India’s true test is whether it can generate usable naval capabilities for its strategic region at a similar speed.
On November 5, 2025, China inducted its third aircraft carrier, ‘Fujian’, into its fleet. According to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, this warship with a displacement of over 80,000 tonnes is equipped with Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) technology. With this, China entered an era of operating three aircraft carriers.
The commissioning of Fujian is not merely the addition of another large vessel. It signals a new level of technology where catapult technology allows heavy weapon-carrying fighters (J-15T, J-35) and airborne early warning aircraft (KJ-600 Airborne Early Warning) to launch with ease. Fujian also completed sea trials of catapult-assisted take-offs and arrested landings with its carrier group.
China’s carrier fleet need not scare India, but the technological shift should be taken as a lesson. India must decide what kind of aircraft carrier architecture it requires in the Indian Ocean.
The requirement for a third aircraft carrier (IAC-2) is not simply because China has three carriers. Its real math is linked to sustained availability.
India faces two main maritime fronts:
Western Front (Arabian Sea): Where Pakistan, the Persian Gulf, and energy supply routes lie.
Eastern Front (Bay of Bengal): Where Andaman-Nicobar and the mouth of the Malacca Strait are located.
If India has only two carriers (INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant) and one of them goes into long-term maintenance or a major refit, India is left with no option to deploy carriers simultaneously on both fronts. A third carrier is not an “extra ship”, but an ‘availability multiplier’ that enhances the operational capacity of the fleet manifold.
Strategic reality: An aircraft carrier does not fight a war alone. It operates with a full Carrier Battle Group (CBG) comprising air defence destroyers, multirole frigates, attack submarines, anti-submarine helicopters, and logistics tankers.
While discussions on a third aircraft carrier emphasise operational availability, India’s INS Vishal (Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 2) remains caught in delays. Envisaged as a 65,000-tonne supercarrier, INS Vishal was initially conceptualised to provide the Indian Navy with true global power projection capabilities through advanced aviation and longer endurance. However, official progress has stalled significantly compared to China’s rapid carrier expansion.
The core hurdle for INS Vishal has been the constant flux in design choices, particularly around propulsion and catapult launch technology:
These unresolved choices, compounded by budget prioritisation toward submarines and a proposed repeat order of a smaller 45,000-tonne Vikrant-class carrier, have pushed back INS Vishal’s timelines indefinitely.
Given that complex warships take 10 to 12 years to construct, the Indian Government must urgently freeze the design of INS Vishal and accord formal sanction. Delaying this decision risks leaving the Indian Navy hobbled with a single operational carrier whenever INS Vikramaditya reaches retirement, creating a critical strategic gap in the Indian Ocean Region.
The strategic imperative for a four-carrier fleet: The conventional argument for a three-carrier fleet deploying one on the Western Seaboard (Arabian Sea), one on the Eastern Seaboard (Bay of Bengal), and keeping one in refit leaves zero operational margin for strategic surprise, multi-front crises or combat damage.
A four-carrier architecture fundamentally redefines India’s operational calculus: By contrast, four carriers guarantee that two fully operational Carrier Battle Groups (CBGs) can be continuously deployed on both the Western (Arabian Sea) and Eastern (Bay of Bengal) seaboards at all times. Beyond territorial defense, this fourth hull functions as an expeditionary availability multiplier granting the Indian Navy the capacity to project sea-based air power far into critical chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca and the Western Indian Ocean simultaneously.
Crucially, as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) rapidly expands its carrier fleet into the Indian Ocean, a four-carrier force structure gives India the necessary operational parity to enforce absolute maritime dominance over its strategic theater.
In surface warships, India has achieved an excellent record in recent years. The most successful example of this is the Nilgiri-class stealth frigates under Project 17A.
In May 2026, the sixth warship, ‘Mahendragiri‘, was handed over to the Navy by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders. The delivery of the sixth ship after the first took a mere 17 months, which was considered a milestone in the history of Indian defence manufacturing. Subsequently, in July 2026, Mahendragiri was officially commissioned into the Navy’s Eastern Fleet. Equipped with advanced stealth features, state-of-the-art automation, and high survivability, it is a multi-mission warship.
The biggest lesson from Project 17A is that when you build ships of a proven design in large batches, shipyard worker efficiency improves, supplier supply chains stabilise, and ship build times decrease rapidly. For the 2035 Navy, India must adopt this exact batch-production model.
Surface ships are the visible power of a naval fleet, but submarines hidden in the ocean depths are that invisible dread capable of bringing an enemy’s entire naval plan to a standstill.
India’s strategic nuclear submarine (SSBN) program is on the right track, forming the foundation of nuclear deterrence. However, in the case of conventional diesel-electric submarines (SSK Fleet), India faces a serious timeline challenge. Despite the induction of 6 Kalvari-class (Scorpene / Project 75) submarines into the fleet, the retirement time for the older Kilo-class and HDW submarines is drawing near.
Delays in ambitious programs like Project 75(I) have proven that rather than working on a ‘project-to-project’ basis, India urgently needs a continuous submarine-building ecosystem. Once a submarine production line shuts down and restarts, years are wasted in between.
Although the Pakistan Navy is smaller in size than the Indian Navy, it is aggressively building up its underwater power. The project of acquiring 8 Hangor-class submarines by Pakistan with Chinese cooperation serves as a major planning signal for India.
Out of these, 4 submarines are being built in China and 4 at the Karachi Shipyard in Pakistan. Equipped with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP System), these submarines can remain submerged underwater for several weeks without surfacing.
The answer to this is not just building more submarines, but establishing a comprehensive integrated anti-submarine network (Integrated ASW Network). This includes connecting P-8I Poseidon aircraft, MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, coastal ASW craft, sea-bed sonar sensors, and our own submarines into a single data-network.
Layered ASW and Coastal Security Mesh: To protect coastal waters and harbor entrances from enemy submarines, the Indian Navy has added new layers to its capability.
In February 2026, under an 8-ship project, the third anti-submarine warfare shallow water craft ‘INS Anjadip‘ was commissioned. Subsequently, in June 2026, the fourth ship of the same class, ‘INS Agray’, was inducted into the navy.
The primary task of these ships is to hunt down and destroy enemy submarines in coastal areas, shallow waters, and sensitive sea routes. By 2035, India requires a layered ASW defense shield ASW-SWC craft in the bottom layer, frigates and destroyers in the middle, MH-60R and P-8I aircraft in the air, and submarines in the ocean depths.
In naval discussions, talk of mine-countermeasure vessels (MCMVs) often gets sidelined. However, the strategic reality is that to stop a 45,000-tonne aircraft carrier or a 7,500-tonne destroyer, an enemy does not need to launch an expensive missile; a few naval mines laid at a harbor entrance can paralyze an entire fleet for months.
Ports like Mumbai, Karwar, Kochi, and Visakhapatnam are not only naval bases but also the economic trade centers of the nation. Resolving the shortage of modern dedicated MCMVs in the navy as soon as possible must be an essential part of the 2035 security strategy.
To establish dominance on the sea surface, naval aviation is the most effective weapon. In April 2025, India signed an inter-governmental agreement worth around ₹63,000 crore with France for 26 Rafale-Marine fighter aircraft. This includes 22 single-seater and 4 twin-seater trainer aircraft.
According to government defense publications, deliveries of these Rafale-M aircraft will begin in mid-2028 and be completed by 2030. This agreement will immediately provide a strong air wing for INS Vikrant and Vikramaditya.
Under long-term strategy, India is working on its indigenous Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF) project. Rafale-M will function as a bridge, keeping the Indian Navy’s aerial firepower strong until the arrival of the indigenous fighter jet.
On August 17, 2026, India signed an agreement with General Atomics worth $203 million to lease two MQ-9B SkyGuardian / SeaGuardian drones for 30 months. These 2 Drones will continuously monitor every single movement in the surrounding seas until the delivery of the 31 ordered MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian drones officially begins in 2029 for full-time operations.
Although two drones may seem small in number, strategically they prove the concept of ‘sensor presence’. In a vast region like the Indian Ocean, deploying warships everywhere is not feasible. In such a scenario, High-Altitude Long-Endurance (HALE) drones can remain in the sky for up to 30 hours, keeping watch over thousands of square kilometres via satellite. In the 2035 Navy, alongside physical ship presence, this digital and sensor presence will make the biggest difference.
In future naval warfare, victory will not belong to whoever has the largest missile, but to whoever “sees first, understands first, and strikes accurately first.”
According to the U.S. Defense Report 2025, China has expanded its Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) apparatus extraordinarily, with over 359 active ISR satellites as of January 2024.
Instead of competing with China’s satellite numbers, India needs to develop an integrated information network called ‘Common Operational Picture’ (COP). In this, satellite data, inputs from P-8I aircraft, coastal radar networks, ship sonars, and UAV data will be merged into one place using AI algorithms to clarify the real-time maritime situation.
Nature has given India a natural fortress at the head of the Indian Ocean that no amount of money could buy. However, transforming this geography into military strength requires infrastructure:
Project Seabird (Karwar): Under Phase IIA of this naval base being built at Karwar in Karnataka, berthing and repair infrastructure is being prepared for 32 major warships/submarines and 23 yardcraft.
Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC): Situated across the Bay of Bengal, this island chain functions as India’s forward posts at the entrance of the Malacca Strait.
Lakshadweep (INS Jatayu): The most vital base in the Arabian Sea for patrolling sea lanes and expanding forward presence westward.
Treating the construction of naval ships merely as ‘government treasury expenditure’ would be an extremely narrow mindset. According to Economic Survey analyses, nearly 65 percent of the value addition used in warship construction comes from ancillary industries such as steel, electronics, cables, engines, pumps, and software components.
Economic Multiplier of Shipbuilding: According to economic models, the GDP multiplier of naval shipbuilding is estimated at roughly 1.82. This means if the government invests ₹1.5 lakh crore in indigenous naval ship construction, it generates an economic circulation of ₹2.73 lakh crore in the country’s economy. Along with this, its employment multiplier is 6.48, showing that this sector creates high-skilled jobs on a large scale for MSMEs and youth.
The Journey from INS Vikrant to a Fast Builder’s Navy: The construction of INS Vikrant utilized 76% indigenous content, including 30,000 tonnes of special naval steel supplied by SAIL, and involved over 100 MSMEs.
Currently, 51 major ships worth nearly ₹90,000 crore are under construction in Indian shipyards. Since 2014, over 40 indigenous warships and submarines have been delivered to the navy, with a vessel inducted on average every 40 days.
In August 2026, Garden Reach Shipbuilders (GRSE) launched ‘Shruti‘, the second ship in the ‘Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessel’ (NGOPV) series. Out of the navy’s 11 NGOPV project, 4 ships are being built by GRSE and 7 ships by Goa Shipyard (GSL).
India’s goal now should not be just to become a ‘Builder’s Navy’, but a ‘Fast Builder’s Navy’. This means freezing designs, placing large orders together and never letting shipyard assembly lines sit empty.
The 200-Ship target and the manpower Challenge: In public debates, a ‘200-ship navy’ is often assumed to be a magic number. However, strategic analysis shows that even a 200-ship navy can be weak if it lacks balance in submarines or logistics ships. The real goal must be a ‘Balanced Fleet Architecture‘.
Furthermore, even the most modern warship is ineffective without the sailors and officers deployed aboard it. According to figures presented by the Navy before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in 2025, the fleet had 10,045 officers, 59,828 sailors, 11,634 Agniveers, and 32,171 civilian defence employees serving in it.
As new and high-tech platforms are inducted into the navy leading up to 2035, we will need to increase not just the ‘number of soldiers’, but build a cadre of cyber experts, electronic warfare experts, data analysts, submarine specialists, and unmanned systems operators. For a high-tech navy, manpower quality will be the single biggest deciding factor.
Another powerful pillar of the Indian Navy in 2035 will be its MAHASAGAR vision and its role as a ‘First Responder‘ during peacetime.
Whenever a natural disaster (cyclone/flood), humanitarian crisis, or security threat occurs in the Indian Ocean Region, the Indian Navy is the first to arrive with relief material, hospital ships, and security assistance. This partnership with Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and East African nations strengthens India’s soft power and naval credibility. This very goodwill and diplomacy earned during peacetime forms the most effective base to counter any unilateral Chinese pressure during wartime.
The conclusion of the Indian Navy’s 2035 strategy is encapsulated in a single sentence: India does not need to copy China’s 400-ship navy, but India needs to become so capable and effective in its strategic theatre (the Indian Ocean) that no competitor dares to take advantage of India’s absence.
In naval warfare doctrine, this is called ‘Enough ships to dominate our theater’.
When India’s indigenous shipbuilding ecosystem works rapidly, when a battle group for three aircraft carriers instead of two is ready, when an unbroken network of submarines and ASW protects the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and when forward presence from Karwar to Andaman is strengthened, then the Indian Navy of 2035 will not merely be a regional force, but will emerge as the strongest guarantee of security, peace, and global prosperity in the Indian Ocean.
Click here to read Part 1 of this series.
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