We have to make heart of submarine tick, says project head

VISAKHAPATNAM - The head of India’s ambitious project to build a nuclear powered submarine, Vice Admiral (retd) D.S.P. Verma, Sunday said that the vessel is ready and now they have to make its heart, the nuclear reactor, tick.

INS Arihant, the country’s first indigenous nuclear powered submarine, was Sunday launched at the Ship Building Centre here, catapulting India into the league of five elite nations.

“The air, oil and water are the fluids running in a submarine and the nuclear reactor is the heart. We have fitted everything and now we have to get the fluids to flow and the heart tick,” Verma told IANS on the sidelines of the launching ceremony.

It will take two years of sea trials before the submarine is commissioned in the Indian Navy.

The top secret Advanced Technology Vessel project, which built the vessel, was conceived in 1984 and the steel for the submarine cut in 1998.

“This is the first time that such a project was conceived and undertaken in the country. … All the facilities and the infrastructure had to be set up from scratch,” said Verma.

The ATV project has been the result of the active collaboration of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy and other public and private sector undertakings. Private industrial players like Larsen and Tourbo and Tata Power helped in making the project a reality.

“The second submarine will have more indigenous components,” Verma told IANS.

According to sources, construction on the second submarine has already begun.

“The trials will have to be undertaken to establish the reliability. Design is only the dream of a person and implementing it is different,” Verma said, adding that “11 years to construct a submarine is not bad at all”.

The project had to face initial hurdles like technology denial and miniaturising the nuclear reactor to fit the 110-metre long and 11-metre wide submarine, which has a surface displacement of 6,000 tonnes.

The nuclear power will help the submarine to remain underwater for longer durations - a factor that will help increase the geographical reach and endurance of the Indian Navy.

The submarine will be manned by a crew of roughly 100 sailors trained in India.

The launch ceremony was performed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur here.