Navy Chief: INS Nipun will enhance our critical underwater capabilities

Why in the News

The Indian Navy has commissioned INS Nipun at Mumbai, a dedicated Diving Support and Submarine Rescue Vessel built for work beneath the surface.

What capability does INS Nipun add?

1. It is a specialist platform for underwater work: The vessel is built for deep sea diving, underwater intervention and submarine rescue.
2. It can carry the rescue submersible: Its ability to embark and operate the Indian Navy’s Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel is what converts it into a rescue platform.
3. The rescue role extends beyond Indian submarines: It can respond to a distressed submarine of the Indian Navy or of a partner navy, which is the basis of the claim that India can emerge as the region’s preferred submarine rescue partner.
4. Its diving capability supports relief work: The specialised diving capability can assist partner nations in underwater salvage and in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions.
5. Few navies hold the combination: The vessel brings together a range of capabilities possessed by only a handful of navies.

Why does the Navy frame this as a strategic requirement?

1. The maritime environment is described as contested: The Chief of the Naval Staff assessed that threat perceptions are constantly evolving and morphing into newer forms.
2. Preparedness is the stated response: The exact nature of future threats cannot be predicted, so robust capability has to be built against anticipated threats in advance.
3. The Western Naval Command gains a full column capability: The addition allows the command to operate above, on and beneath the waves.
4. Integration is the immediate task: The command is to fold the vessel into operational plans, exercise her capabilities rigorously and develop proficiency around her systems.

What does the vessel mean for indigenous shipbuilding?

1. The builder is an Indian yard: Hindustan Shipyard Limited at Visakhapatnam designed and built the vessel indigenously.
2. The class is new to the fleet: INS Nipun is the second ship of the Nistar class of diving support vessels.
3. The Ministry of Defence frames it as self-reliance: The induction is presented as a further step towards self-reliance in defence shipbuilding.
4. The platform type is rarely built domestically: A diving and rescue vessel is a niche design, so building it in India establishes a capability that cannot be sourced quickly from imports.

Challenges to India’s submarine rescue and underwater capability

1. Rescue is a race against the air supply: A disabled submarine’s crew survives on limited oxygen, so a rescue system has to be transported and mated within hours. Eg. All 118 crew aboard the Russian submarine Kursk died in the Barents Sea in 2000 before foreign rescue assistance was accepted.
   The Fix: Keep rescue systems prepositioned on both seaboards with standing mating certification against partner navy hatch designs.
2. The fleet operates on two seaboards with few rescue platforms: Indian submarines patrol the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and dedicated rescue assets are limited in number. Eg. India inducted its first Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle system only in 2018, with the second following the next year.
   The Fix: Retain air transportable rescue systems that can be flown to the nearest usable port instead of sailed from a home base.
3. Rescue only works where the hatch fits: A rescue vehicle can dock only with a submarine whose escape hatch matches its mating skirt, so cross navy rescue depends on standardisation. Eg. The International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office exists to run exercises that test exactly this compatibility.
   The Fix: Certify Indian rescue systems against partner navy hatch standards and publish the compatibility list to regional navies.
4. Naval shipbuilding timelines stretch: Indian yards have delivered warships and submarines behind their original schedules, which delays the capability rather than the contract. Eg. Deliveries under the Scorpene class submarine programme ran years behind the timeline set at signing.
   The Fix: Link yard payments to certified milestone completion rather than to calendar tranches.
5. Saturation diving is a scarce skill: Deep diving support needs trained saturation divers and chamber operators, and that trained pool is small worldwide. Eg. Offshore energy operators and navies draw saturation divers from the same limited global workforce.
   The Fix: Run a joint naval and commercial diving training school whose certification is recognised for offshore industry work, so the pool grows beyond service requirements.

Back2Basics: Hindustan Shipyard Limited

1. Status: A shipyard at Visakhapatnam that was transferred to the Ministry of Defence in 2010 from the Ministry of Shipping.
2. Origin: It was founded in 1941 as Scindia Shipyard and built India’s first indigenous merchant ship, Jala Usha, in 1948.
3. Work: It builds and repairs merchant and naval vessels and carries out submarine refits for the Indian Navy.
4. Current orders: It is building the Nistar class diving support vessels and the fleet support ships ordered for the Navy.

[2026] Which of the following items of defence hardware is/are manufactured in India?

1. Su-30 MKI Fighter Jets

2. T-90 MK-III Tanks

3. Akula Class Submarine

(a) 1 and 2

(b) 1 and 3

(c) 1 only

(d) 2 only