New Delhi, Jun 22 (IANS): The Defence Ministry inked a contract with Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) for construction of two Pollution Control Vessels for Indian Coast Guard (ICG) for Rs 583 crore on Tuesday.

The new Pollution Control Vessels planned are for pollution response requirements in Eastern and the ecologically sensitive Andaman and Nicobar regions.

These special role ships will be indigenously designed, developed and built by GSL.

"The acquisition is under 'Buy Indian - Indigenously Designed Developed & Manufactured (Buy Indian-IDDM)', the highest priority category for defence capital procurements," the ministry said.

The acquisition will significantly augment the capability of ICG to respond to Oil spill disasters at sea and also enhance Pollution Response (PR) efficiency.

These two vessels are scheduled for delivery by November 2024 and May 2025 respectively.

At present, coast guard has three Pollution Control Vessels in its fleet at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Porbandar to carry out dedicated Pollution Surveillance, Oil spill monitoring, response operations in Indian exclusive economic zone and around islands.

The vessels, with capability of operating helicopter onboard, will have many advanced features with modern PR equipment of niche technology for containing, recovering and dispersing of marine oil spill.

While meeting the objectives of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan' (Self reliant India), the contract would further boost the indigenous shipbuilding capability and increase employment opportunities in the shipbuilding sector that involves around 200 MSME vendors, the ministry added.