Laxmipati Engineering Works is a heavy-engineering subcontractor that builds the giant metal skeletons, vessels and piping for India’s steel mills, refineries and warships - it does not design the plant, it fabricates and erects the parts that make the plant run. The company began life in 2012 as a shipbuilder named Siddhi Vinayak Shipping Corporation, obtained a government licence to manufacture warships, then pivoted decisively away from building its own yard to become an engineering-services partner for shipbuilders and industrial giants instead. That same pattern - spotting a capital-intensive ambition, then repositioning to supply the people who actually execute it - recurs across its history and explains why a company with a warship licence now earns over half its revenue from steel-plant equipment.
Business segments
A single heavy-engineering engine, run from one factory and multiple site yards, that supplies three distinct customer groups - steelmakers, defence shipbuilders and process industries - with the same set of fabrication, machining and site-erection skills.
1. Steel-plant fabrication: the workshop that feeds the mills
More than half the company’s work is making and installing the massive custom-built vessels, ducts and structures that steel plants cannot buy off the shelf.
- One factory, 75% of revenue - the company’s Palsana workshop in Surat, spread over 45,000 square metres, houses 30-tonne cranes, a 500-ton press and over 200 welding machines, and generates roughly three-quarters of total revenue from the equipment it builds under its roof.
- AM/NS is the anchor client - the steelmaker’s Hazira plant has ordered a stream of one-off giants: a Laminar Tank, a Top Gas Scrubber, a hyperbola-shaped Technological Structure for the Coke Oven Project, and the company’s largest-ever single piece, a Feed Gas Heater made of stainless steel 310S.
- Welds that X-rays can’t fault - the company has taught itself to weld difficult alloys such as SS 310S and Incoloy 800T, then proved the joints with 100% radiography testing, which is how it won the right to build pressure vessels carrying the ASME “U” stamp and the National Board “R” stamp for repairs.
- Site teams follow the steel - the remaining quarter of revenue comes from site related projects at L&T Hazira and elsewhere, including a critical coke-drum overlay repair at MRPL executed in partnership with Sulzer India.
2. Defence fabrication: the warship licence repurposed
The company holds a government licence to build warships but uses it to supply fabricated structures and precision components to the shipyards that actually build them.
- A licence few others have - the industrial licence from the Government of India for manufacturing warships is a regulatory barrier that the company turns into a supplier credential, giving it access to defence prime contractors’ fabrication packages.
- Interceptor boats opened the door - promoter Mr. Manojkumar Sarawagi secured the company’s first defence contract by winning a fabrication order for interceptor boats for L.P. Naval, and the relationship has since expanded into marine structures and work at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders in Mumbai.
- Aluminium is the next niche - the company is consciously building capability in aluminium boat construction and repair, a segment it describes as having few competitors, while also planning to enter defence through technical textiles spun out of the group’s textile heritage.
3. Process-industry and green-energy projects: the diversification workshop
The same cranes and welders that serve steel plants also build pressure vessels for oil refineries, electrolyser packages for green hydrogen, and export orders for combustion-equipment makers.
- Refinery-grade pressure vessels - the company has delivered critical equipment such as a Slurry Vessel with Agitator Assembly for IOCL Digboi in Assam and pressure vessels for PSU oil and gas companies, leveraging its ASME and IBR certifications.
- Green hydrogen via L&T - three sets of large-diameter pressure vessels were built for L&T Electrolysers, positioning the company inside the supply chain for electrolyser manufacturing without having to develop its own hydrogen technology.
- Export work through Indian EPCs - the company fabricates equipment for Zeeco India, an exporter of burners and combustion systems, giving it indirect access to international markets without setting up its own overseas sales force.
- Certifications are the sales pitch - the company is pursuing empanelment with Engineers India Limited and PESO, along with RDSO certification to enter the railway sector, because each new stamp on the workshop wall opens a new set of government and PSU tender lists.
Group structure and partners
A family-run group with a textile fortune, no subsidiaries, and a board of three brothers who control the company alongside three independent directors.
- The company is part of the Laxmipati Group, whose chairman Mr. Sanjaykumar Sarawagi grew the family business into what is described as India’s largest saree manufacturer before diversifying into engineering, real estate, power and education.
- LEWL has no subsidiary, joint venture or associate company - it is a standalone entity with its entire operations run from the Palsana workshop and client sites.
- The board comprises three executive directors - Mr. Sanjaykumar Sarawagi, Mr. Manojkumar Sarawagi and Mr. Rakesh Sarawagi, who are brothers - and three non-executive independent directors.
- Related-party transactions occur with group entities such as Siddhi Vinayak Polyfab, Siddhi Vinayak Silk Mills and Anmol Tradelinks, primarily for unsecured loans and the supply and installation of plant and machinery.
- The company was formerly known as L.P. Naval and Engineering Limited and, before that, Siddhi Vinayak Shipping Corporation Limited; its shares trade on the BSE SME platform.