Indian Register of Shipping Brand Guidelines: IRClass, a 1975 Not-for-Profit Class Society

A national class society, set up by government decision.

The Indian Register of Shipping, which now trades as IRClass, was set up in March 1975. Its own history says the Government of India formed a steering committee, known as the Mudaliar Committee, to look at whether India should have a classification society of its own, and accepted the committee’s recommendation in 1974. The new body was registered as a public limited company under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956, the form used for not-for-profit companies. The company says it has no share capital, no shareholders and pays no dividends; English Wikipedia notes that the same provision is now section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. Its head office is in Powai, Mumbai.

Its founding objects, as the company lists them, were to keep a faithful record of the merchant ships it classed, to set rules for building and maintaining ships, marine equipment and general engineering equipment, to approve designs and survey land installations, machinery and materials, and to help develop India’s merchant marine. Certification of quality-management systems in industry was added to that list.

English Wikipedia, drawing on the company’s own milestones, says that in its first year IRS signed dual-class agreements for mutual cooperation with the American Bureau of Shipping, Lloyd’s Register and Det Norske Veritas, and published its first register of ships. Its first rule book followed in 1977. In 1979 the Indian government authorised it to assign load lines to Indian-flag ships, and in the same year it began inspection work for land-based industry. Dual-class agreements with Bureau Veritas in 1983 and Germanischer Lloyd in 1984 came next, the same source says.

From associate to full IACS member.

Membership of the International Association of Classification Societies, the industry body of class societies, came in two steps. English Wikipedia says IRS became an associate of IACS in 1991 and a full member in 2010; it took the IACS vice-chair in 2018 and the chair in 2019. Hellenic Shipping News, carrying a company statement in September 2026, describes IRS as a full IACS member recognised by the European Commission since 2016 under Regulation (EC) No 391/2009.

At home its role grew with statutory work. According to English Wikipedia, the Indian maritime administration made IRS the sole authority for final assignment of load lines on Indian-flag ships in 1997 and the only recognised organisation for audits under the ISM Code on Indian-flag ships in 1998; when the ISPS Code took effect in 2004, IRS was named the recognised security organisation for Indian-flag ships and port facilities. In 2000, the same source says, the International Underwriting Association recognised IRS under its classification clause.

The work today runs well beyond merchant ships. The company’s service list covers classification and statutory surveys, defence work, type and works approval, offshore classification, condition assessment, noise and vibration studies, system certification and an academy for training. It says it publishes rules for Indian Navy combatant and non-combatant ships and for Indian Coast Guard ships.

Abroad, IRS has grown through offices. Speaking at the Sea Asia conference in Singapore in April 2017, its executive chairman told the Press Trust of India that IRS had 48 offices, 24 of them outside India, and had just opened one in Kuala Lumpur. He described work with India’s inland waterways authority on LNG-fuelled vessels on the Ganga, an agreement with Bureau Veritas on LNG expertise, and the certification of ship-recycling yards in India and Bangladesh. In 2026 the company announced an office in Hamburg, with its German entity still under registration, Hellenic Shipping News reported. The company now lists 51 flag approvals.

Design and documentation.

A classification society’s output is mostly rules, surveys and certificates, and its identity tends to draw on marks of approval, dates and documents. Lloyd’s Register says its surveyors have stamped an LR mark into steel since 1884 and that its 2021 logo is a reading of that stamp in a colour it calls marine green; the American Bureau of Shipping’s eagle and anchor still sit on top of 65 Broadway in New York, its headquarters from 1977 to 1986, according to Wikipedia. Founding years — 1760, 1862 — appear prominently on both societies’ websites.

The websites themselves are working tools as much as shop windows. Lloyd’s Register lists its rules and regulations, an “LR Ships in Class” search, an office and port finder and an e-certificate verification portal; ABS offers a Rule Manager, the ABS Record database of classed vessels and certificates, and databases of type-approved products and service suppliers.

Much of the work now reaches beyond ships. Lloyd’s Register says it first inspected refrigerated cold stores in 1911 and later worked in nuclear power, oil and gas; ABS describes independent certification for marine and offshore products, materials, equipment and containers. Both societies have set up or spun off separate businesses for training, software, management systems and consulting.

They also publish heavily. Lloyd’s Register lists research reports, regulatory updates, podcasts and webinars; ABS lists regulatory news, advisories and an annual review. This guide sets out what can be checked about each society — when it was founded, how it is owned and how it presents itself — and marks clearly what rests on the society’s own word.

Two names and a company motto.

The organisation is run as a members’ body. The company says its General Body is drawn from groups such as underwriters, shipowners, shipbuilders, port trusts and engineering industries; the board, elected by those members, chooses one of its number as executive chairman, and a managing director runs the business day to day. A technical committee of builders, owners, material makers, professional institutions and authorities reviews and approves its rules. English Wikipedia says fees from classification are used only to perform those services, and that any surplus in a year goes back into the services, including research and development.

Its name has two forms. The legal name is the Indian Register of Shipping, shortened to IRS; the name used on its website, its academy and its press statements is IRClass. The company gives the three letters a motto of its own, saying the acronym has come to stand for “Integrity, Reliability & Safety.” Its corporate magazine is called Touch of Class. At the INMARCO conference in Mumbai in October 2026, the company released a report titled Five Decades of Building Maritime India, tracing its first fifty years, according to its statement carried by The Maritime Executive.

For a design guide, the Indian Register of Shipping shows how a technical body can carry two names at once, a formal register title and a short trading mark, and let a motto explain the letters. Compare DNV, one of its first dual-class partners, and Bureau Veritas, which signed a dual-class agreement with IRS in 1983. For this guide we use a deep sea navy, a monsoon teal and a marigold brass on chart paper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Indian Register of Shipping’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.