Indian Navy commissions INS Nipun, second indigenous Nistar-class diving support vessel

Mumbai: INS Nipun, Indian Navy's second indigenously built Nistar-class Diving Support Vessel (DSV), before its commissioning ceremony, at Naval Dockyard in Mumbai. (PTI Photo/Kunal Patil)(PTI08_31_2026_000007B)

The Indian Navy has commissioned INS Nipun at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, marking the arrival of the second Diving Support Vessel in the indigenous Nistar-class, and completing a two-ship, two-coast capability for deep-sea diving, underwater intervention and submarine rescue. The commissioning ceremony was presided over by Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Chief of Naval Staff. The commissioning has provided the Western fleet a dedicated diving support vessel to match sister ship INS Nistar, which has been operating out of the Eastern Naval Command since its own commissioning in July last year. Built by Hindustan Shipyard Limited at Visakhapatnam, Nipun was delivered to the Navy on 30 July this year following an extensive round of outfitting and sea trials. The contract for both vessels was signed with HSL back in September 2018 for a combined cost of around Rs 2,393 crore, with keels laid for Nistar in December 2019 and for the Nipun three months later. The Sanskrit name Nipun, meaning one who is adept and well-versed in a particular discipline. At roughly 118 metres in length and displacing over 8,500 tonnes, Nipun carries close to 75% indigenous content, demonstrating India's growing ability to design and construct technologically sophisticated naval platforms domestically. The ship is built to support saturation diving operations at depths of up to 300 metres, alongside side-stage diving capability extending to 75 metres, making it suited for both submarine rescue and the inspection, maintenance and repair of critical underwater infrastructure such as subsea cables and pipelines. A 15-tonne subsea crane, dynamic positioning systems and Remotely Operated Vehicles capable of working at depths up to 1,000 metres. Central to Nipun's role is its function as a mother ship for Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles, the specialised submersibles that can dock directly with a stricken submarine's escape hatch to extract the trapped crew in the event of an emergency. The ship also carries an eight-bed hospital, an intensive care unit, an operating theatre and hyperbaric medical facilities, providing the vessel the ability to handle the very specific in nature ability to handle deep sea diving related medical issues. With INS Nistar already having tested this rescue architecture during Exercise Pacific Reach off Singapore last September, Nipun's induction mirrors that capability on India's western seaboard, giving the navy a genuinely two-coast submarine rescue and deep-sea intervention capability for the first time.