India Commissions INS Mahendragiri, Sixth Nilgiri-Class Stealth Frigate

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh commissioned INS Mahendragiri, the sixth Project 17A stealth frigate, at the Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam on July 11, 2026, leaving one ship of the class still to enter service.

The Indian Navy commissioned INS Mahendragiri, its sixth Project 17A (Nilgiri-class) stealth frigate, at the Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam on July 11, 2026. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh presided over the ceremony, attended by Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan.

Mahendragiri was designed by the Indian Navy's Warship Design Bureau and built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) in Mumbai, with over 75 percent indigenous content drawn from a wide network of Indian industries and small and medium enterprises. "This indigenously designed and constructed state-of-the-art warship is a testament to our Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision," Singh said at the ceremony. The frigate is the first Indian Navy warship to carry the name, taken from the Mahendragiri mountain in the Eastern Ghats.

Project 17A comprises seven guided-missile frigates that follow on from the Shivalik class with enhanced stealth shaping, upgraded weapons and sensors, and improved platform management systems. The commissioning pace has been rapid: lead ship INS Nilgiri entered service in January 2025, followed by INS Udaygiri and INS Himgiri in August 2025, INS Taragiri in April 2026 and INS Dunagiri in June 2026 — six frigates inducted in roughly a year and a half. One ship of the class remains to be commissioned.

The program has also compressed Indian shipbuilding timelines. According to Indian officials, the interval from launch to delivery was cut by about half over the course of the class, from 63 months to 31 months, while total construction time fell from 95 to 75 months.

The Nilgiri class arrives as the Indian Navy modernizes its escort force, which GlobalMilitary.net data shows is currently built around three Shivalik-class and a larger number of Russian-designed Talwar-class frigates alongside indigenous destroyers. India has made domestic warship construction a centerpiece of its defense-industrial policy, with most major surface combatants now built in Indian yards.

The final Project 17A frigate is expected to join the fleet in the coming months, completing the seven-ship, multi-billion-dollar program.