Hindustan Shipyard Limited has handed over the second Nistar-class diving support vessel, INS Nipun, to the Indian Navy under a contract originally signed in 2018.
The ship’s keel was laid in 2020 and it was launched in 2022, before its recent delivery expanded India’s fleet of deepwater and submarine-rescue platforms. In service, Nipun is expected to support diving operations and unmanned underwater vehicles for surveillance and salvage work, and its main role alongside the submarine force will be transporting and launching India’s Deep Submergence Rescue Vessels, which are used to reach and extract crew from a submarine in distress.
India’s Ministry of Defence said the delivery marks another milestone in the country’s indigenous shipbuilding effort, noting the vessel was built with “nearly 75 percent Indigenous Content.”
The 118-metre Nistar-class ship has a 23-metre beam and is fitted with twin diesel engines, a dynamic positioning system, a diver-monitoring platform, mapping and debris-localization sonar, and additional navigation radars, along with an electronic warfare suite, a Lynx-U2 fire control system and 30mm rotary cannons for self-defence. It can sustain operations for 60 days at a stretch, track divers to a depth of 300 metres, support side diving to 75 metres, and operate remote systems out to 1,000 metres, giving it a broad range of options for submarine-rescue and salvage missions.
The addition of a second Nistar-class vessel reflects the growing emphasis India’s Navy has placed on submarine rescue capability as its underwater fleet expands with new conventional and nuclear-powered boats. Deep-sea rescue ships are a capability few navies maintain in depth, since submarine accidents are rare but can be catastrophic, and having a dedicated platform able to deploy rescue submersibles quickly can be the difference between recovering a stranded crew and losing them. With two Nistar-class ships now in service, India joins a small group of navies that operate purpose-built submarine rescue vessels rather than relying solely on allied support in an emergency.