5,000 tonnes: the largest crane in India by rated lifting capacity is Mammoet’s PTC210-DS ring crane, which Mammoet said in June 2023 was installing heavy refinery components in Gujarat. Below it sit two more Mammoet ring cranes of 2,000 and 1,600 tonnes in Rajasthan, 1,600-tonne and 1,350-tonne crawler cranes owned by Sarens and by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, and a 1,200-tonne class all-terrain crane owned by Steel Carriers Infrastructure. The biggest Indian-made crane is ACE’s 180-tonne crawler. No owner publishes what these cranes cost or rent for.

Which is the biggest crane in India depends on what you count. A fair answer has to separate three different machines: ring cranes that come in for one refinery and leave, crawler cranes that move between wind farms and plants, and wheeled all-terrain cranes that drive to site. Each is listed below with its owner, its rated capacity and the job it is known for.

How this list was built

A crane is listed only where its owner or its maker has said, in its own press release, stock-exchange filing or newsletter, that it is owned in India or working here. Every entry carries the date of that statement, and the sources were checked in November 2026. Rated capacity is the maker’s headline figure, not the heaviest load ever lifted, which is always lower. Cranes move, so a date tells you when the owner last put it on record, not where the crane stands this week.

The fleet sizes of the big rental companies are covered in our roll-call of the largest construction equipment fleets in India, and the biggest digging machines in India’s largest excavators. This page is about single machines.

Which is the largest crane in India?

Ring cranes hold the top of the list. A ring crane stands on a circular track and lifts whole refinery reactors and columns in one piece, which is why they appear almost only at refineries.

Crane Rated capacity Owner Where and what (owner’s own date)
PTC210-DS ring crane 5,000 t Mammoet Gujarat, heavy refinery components (June 2023); upgraded from the PTC200-DS for Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery to lift a 2,000-ton structure in one piece (September 2018)
MSG80 module sliding gantry 3,000 t Mammoet HPCL Visakh refinery for L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, including a 1,646-ton reactor (November 2019)
PT50 ring crane 2,000 t Mammoet Rajasthan, refinery installations (June 2023)
PTC35-DS ring crane 1,600 t Mammoet Rajasthan, refinery installations (June 2023)

Mammoet’s June 2023 release on the three ring cranes put their combined capacity at 8,600 tonnes and said it planned to bring a 4,300-tonne SK190 and a 6,000-tonne SK6000 to India next. We found no later Mammoet statement confirming either has arrived, so they stay off the list. The Visakh job also holds the heaviest documented lift here: in 2019 Mammoet called the 1,646-ton reactor the heaviest ever installed in India.

The biggest crawler cranes in India

Crawler cranes are the heaviest crane in India that a rental company actually keeps in its own fleet and moves from job to job. How a lattice-boom crawler works is explained in the crawler crane guide; the record holders are these.

Crane Rated capacity Owner Job or note (date)
Demag CC 8800-1 1,600 t Sarens First reactor lift at the Ramagundam fertiliser plant (August 2018)
Not named by owner up to 1,600 MT Sanghvi Movers Top of a fleet range that includes cranes in Saudi Arabia (May 2026)
Liebherr LR 11350 (two) 1,350 t Nuclear Power Corporation of India Lifted a 50 m wide ring liner at Kakrapar unit 3, Gujarat; heaviest load a 400 t generator (May 2014)
SANY SCC8000A 800 t Dwarkesh Transport Corporation; Sanghvi Movers (four) Wind turbine erection in Kutch (March 2022); four to Sanghvi in 2022
Zoomlion ZCC98000 800 MT Tara Chand InfraLogistic Solutions Delivered July 2024; two more 800 MT crawlers added April to December 2025
SANY SCC7500A (ten) 750 t Sanghvi Movers Eight delivered in April to June 2023 (August 2023)

One claim needs care. SANY called its 800-tonne SCC8000A “India’s largest crawler crane” when it delivered the first one in 2022. Liebherr’s 2014 press release on the Kakrapar lift shows that NPCIL already owned two 1,350-tonne crawlers, so read SANY’s line as the biggest crawler SANY had sold here. Sanghvi does not name the model behind its 1,600 MT top end, or say whether that crane is working in India or in Saudi Arabia.

NPCIL is also the one owner on the list that buys instead of hiring. Liebherr’s release says it owns three LR 1650s, two LR 11350s and four all-terrain cranes, and uses only its own cranes for major hoisting.

What is the biggest mobile crane in India?

The biggest mobile crane in India that drives on its own wheels is a Demag AC 1000-9, a 1,200-tonne class all-terrain crane bought by Steel Carriers Infrastructure of Mumbai in 2019. Demag’s statement at the delivery called it the first crane of this type in India. The owners, Sunil and Naresh Makad, said it would serve refineries, petrochemicals, cement, fertiliser and civil projects, and would cut mobilisation time and cost compared with big crawlers.

All-terrain crane Rated capacity Owner Source date
Demag AC 1000-9 1,200 t class Steel Carriers Infrastructure August 2019
Model not named 900 MT Tara Chand InfraLogistic Solutions January 2026, added April to December 2025

Tara Chand’s January 2026 investor presentation calls its 900 MT all-terrain crane the largest in its fleet of 403 machines.

The biggest crane made in India

Every crane above was built abroad. The largest Indian-made one we could source is ACE’s 180-tonne crawler crane, which ACE showed at Bauma Conexpo in February 2023 and described as India’s biggest indigenously designed and developed crane. The makers who sell cranes here are compared in our guide to crane manufacturing brands in India.

For a contractor buying a crane of his own, the ceiling is much lower. The biggest pick-and-carry cranes you can buy from a dealer are machines like the 35-tonne ACE F350 and the 30-tonne Indo Power 30FNX. They do the daily lifting on most Indian sites; the giants above are hired for a few weeks of one job.

Highest crane in India: the tower crane record

Height is a different record. The highest crane working height we found in a maker’s own release is 181 metres, reached by four Potain MCT 385 tower cranes that Afcons bought for the Tiger Valley bridge on the Pune-Mumbai Missing Link. Manitowoc said in August 2023 that the cranes started at 60 metres on the valley floor and were climbed with pylons that reach 182 metres. Taller building cranes have been reported for Mumbai towers, but we found no dated maker or owner figure, so India’s tallest crane on a building is left open here.

Biggest crane company in India

Sanghvi Movers of Pune calls itself India’s largest crane rental company and the world’s fifth largest. Its results release of 20 May 2026 counts more than 500 cranes, including those in Saudi Arabia, from 20 MT to 1,600 MT, with Indian utilisation at 79% in 2025-26. Tara Chand InfraLogistic, with a 900 MT top end, lists a 125-machine order at Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery among its past wins. Contractors who need a crane for a refinery shutdown or a wind package are often bidding the same jobs, which appear in live infrastructure and industrial tenders.

What does the biggest crane in India cost?

On the biggest crane in India, price is not published. Not one of the owners or makers above states what a 1,000-tonne-plus crane cost to buy or what it charges for a day. These cranes are hired for a job, not sold to contractors, and the quote is built from a few heads:

  • Moving the crane in. A crawler or ring crane arrives as many trailer loads, or by ship, and is assembled on site. Mammoet ships its ring cranes in containers for this reason, and moved the 3,000-ton MSG80 at Visakh in big blocks.
  • The rigging crew and their days. Tadano describes a Kuwait job where a ten-person team took ten days to set up a CC 8800-1.
  • Counterweight, ground preparation and any second crane needed to tail a long vessel.
  • Total time on site, since the hire clock runs from arrival to dismantling and not only on lift days.

The listed renters show the economics only at fleet level. Sanghvi reported an average yield of 2.12% a month in India in 2025-26, and Tara Chand an average gross monthly rental yield of 3.05% in its January 2026 presentation. Neither document defines the base, so neither can be turned into a rate for one crane. How a smaller crane earns its keep is worked through in our piece on crane rental business profit.

When to hire a heavy-lift crane instead of a fleet crane

Hire a heavy-lift crane when one lift decides the job: a reactor, a column, a bridge segment or a wind turbine nacelle that no crane in your fleet can reach at the radius needed. That crane comes with its own engineers, crew and lift plan, and you pay for weeks of mobilisation as well as the lift itself. Keep the work on your own pick-and-carry or truck cranes when the loads are under their charts and repeat every day, because that is where a crane you own pays you back. NPCIL is the exception that proves the point: it owns 1,350-tonne crawlers because its plants need them again and again.

If your work sits in the everyday band, compare crane models and prices from the makers who sell and service them in India, and keep the heavy-lift firms on your list for the day the load outgrows your yard.

Crane capacities, fleet details and project facts are as published by the owners and makers on the dates given and change as cranes are bought, sold and moved. Confirm current availability, terms and specifications with the crane owner, OEM or dealer before you plan a lift or sign a contract.