Key Points

Spearheaded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the mission represents a crucial step toward strengthening India’s Blue Economy, an area identified by the Government as a core driver of national growth by 2030.

Covering more than 70 per cent of Earth’s surface, the deep ocean remains one of the least understood ecosystems. It holds mineral wealth, vast biodiversity, renewable energy potential, and climate clues that can reshape how humanity addresses pressing challenges such as global warming, clean energy, and food security.

For India — with its 7,517 km of coastline, nine coastal states, and over 1,300 islands — tapping into this resource-rich frontier is not just a scientific pursuit but also a national economic imperative, according to an article in India Narrative.

The Samudrayaan Project, launched under the mission’s umbrella, represents India’s most ambitious step into the deep sea. Its centrepiece is the engineering marvel MATSYA 6000, a human-occupied vehicle designed to transport aquanauts to 6,000 meters beneath the ocean.

The article highlights that in August this year, during test expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean, Indian aquanauts executed seven-hour dives aboard IFREMER’s submersible Nautile, gaining invaluable experience in piloting, buoyancy management, sample collection, and acoustic communication. These operations marked India’s entry into the exclusive club of fewer than half a dozen nations with deep-sea diving expertise.

Simultaneously, the team successfully collected over 100 kg of cobalt-rich polymetallic nodules from a depth of 1,173 meters in the Andaman Sea — a small but symbolic step toward future deep-sea mining.

The Deep Ocean Mission is aimed at developing indigenous capabilities in deep-sea mining, renewable ocean energy, and biotechnology which will enable India to reduce dependence on imports of critical minerals and strengthen maritime industries including shipping and fisheries.

It will also position India as a leader in global ocean governance and exploration and create new jobs in ocean research, engineering and tourism.

The mission embodies Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “Samudra Manthan”, a modern churning of the ocean to extract prosperity for future generations.

In line with the United Nations’ designation of 2021–2030 as the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, India’s Deep Ocean Mission aligns global responsibility with local opportunity, aiming to balance exploration with sustainability.

- IANS