Which of the following statements are correct about ‘Arnala’, an Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft ? 1. It is indigeneouly designed in India. 2. It is named after the historic Arnala fort located in Maharashtra. 3. It has been built under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) of GRSE with M/s L&T Shipyard. Select the answer using the code given below :

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2025 GK Q112?

D. Correct — D, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements survive checking. The Arnala class is an indigenous design for shallow-water anti-submarine work, intended to replace the ageing Abhay-class corvettes and to operate in the coastal waters and shallow approaches where a full-sized frigate cannot hunt effectively; indigenous content is high, which is the point of the programme. The name follows the class convention: these craft are named after forts, and Arnala is the island fortress off Vasai, north of Mumbai, a sixteenth-century Portuguese work later taken by the Marathas — so statement 2 is right. And the build arrangement is exactly as described: Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers of Kolkata holds the contract and works in partnership with L&T Shipbuilding at Kattupalli near Chennai, a public-private arrangement adopted to spread the eight-ship order across more capacity than one yard could offer. Since nothing in the statement set is false, the all-inclusive option is correct. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)1 and 2 only
(b)2 and 3 only
(c)1 and 3 only
(d)1, 2 and 3

Answer

Why

Correct — D, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements survive checking. The Arnala class is an indigenous design for shallow-water anti-submarine work, intended to replace the ageing Abhay-class corvettes and to operate in the coastal waters and shallow approaches where a full-sized frigate cannot hunt effectively; indigenous content is high, which is the point of the programme. The name follows the class convention: these craft are named after forts, and Arnala is the island fortress off Vasai, north of Mumbai, a sixteenth-century Portuguese work later taken by the Marathas — so statement 2 is right. And the build arrangement is exactly as described: Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers of Kolkata holds the contract and works in partnership with L&T Shipbuilding at Kattupalli near Chennai, a public-private arrangement adopted to spread the eight-ship order across more capacity than one yard could offer. Since nothing in the statement set is false, the all-inclusive option is correct.

Why the others are wrong

(a)1 and 2 only — Drops the public-private build arrangement, which is one of the more distinctive things about the programme and is what allows eight hulls to be delivered in parallel.
(b)2 and 3 only — Drops the indigenous design, which is the programme's stated purpose. These are not licence-built foreign hulls.
(c)1 and 3 only — Drops the fort naming. The convention is real and consistent across the class, and the Navy stated the derivation when the ship was named.

Concept

Anti-submarine warfare in shallow water is a distinct problem. Sound behaves badly near the surface and the seabed, reverberation clutters returns, and submarines can lie quiet on the bottom. A shallow-water craft is therefore small, has a shallow draught, and carries hull-mounted and towed sensors sized for that environment rather than the deep-water sonars of a frigate.

The eight Arnala-class craft matter to India for geography rather than glamour: the western and eastern seaboards both have long stretches of shallow continental shelf, and the approaches to major ports are exactly where a hostile submarine would try to lay mines or gather intelligence. The programme also illustrates how Indian naval shipbuilding has been restructured — a defence public sector yard as prime contractor, a private yard as partner, and the design done in India. Arnala was delivered to the Navy in mid-2025. As a present-day line worth carrying, the follow-on hulls of the class were still being delivered after the exam, so a card should describe the class as under delivery rather than complete.

Key facts

Arnala is the first of eight Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft for the Indian Navy.
The class is named after forts; Arnala is the island fort off Vasai in Maharashtra.
Built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers with L&T Shipbuilding at Kattupalli under a public-private arrangement.
The class replaces the Abhay-class corvettes in the coastal anti-submarine role.
Shallow-water ASW is acoustically harder than deep-water ASW because of reverberation and bottom effects.

Study next

Indian Navy shipbuilding programmes and the yards that execute themAnti-submarine warfare sensors: hull-mounted sonar, towed arrays, dipping sonar and sonobuoysShip naming conventions in the Indian NavyAtmanirbharta in defence — positive indigenisation lists and indigenous content rulesCoastal security architecture after 26/11: Navy, Coast Guard and marine police

Common traps

Assuming an option containing all statements must be wrong. Here it is right.
Confusing the ASW shallow-water craft with the larger Kamorta-class ASW corvettes, which are Project 28 and deep-water.
Correcting the printed 'indigeneouly'. It is the paper's own spelling and is preserved.

As a three-statement current-affairs item on a recently delivered platform, mixing design origin, naming and industrial arrangement — three independent facts, so partial knowledge does not settle it.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Arnala-class craft of the Indian Navy are designed primarily for:
- (a)Mine countermeasures
- (b)Anti-submarine warfare in shallow waters
- (c)Offshore patrol and fisheries protection
- (d)Amphibious landing
Answer(b) Anti-submarine warfare in shallow waters — replacing the Abhay-class corvettes.
practice — not a real PYQ
Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, prime contractor for the Arnala class, is located at:
- (a)Mumbai
- (b)Visakhapatnam
- (c)Kolkata
- (d)Kochi
Answer(c) Kolkata — Mazagon Dock is at Mumbai, Hindustan Shipyard at Visakhapatnam and Cochin Shipyard at Kochi.