India’s two in-service ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs)-INS Arihant and INS Arighat- in addition to three similar boats at various stages of construction and planning- are the culmination of its secret Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) programme launched over three decades ago following India’s solitary subterranean nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974.
The classified programme involved state-run Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), handpicked Indian Navy (IN) personnel, and Russian scientists and technicians. It also included numerous local private and public-sector companies, as well as micro, small, and medium enterprises.
Although an indigenous design, the submarine appears to draw on and combine elements of several Soviet-era and Russian submarines from the Project 670A Skat-series (‘Charlie I’) and Project 667 (‘Delta I’) to the more recent Project 885 Yasen-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines (SSGNs). Arihant and Arighat have an overall length of 111.6 m, with an 11 m beam and 9.5 m draught; the former was quietly commissioned in August 2016, while the latter joined service last week.
The IN, for its part, has declined to comment on the SSBNs, claiming privately that the prime minister’s office has “exclusively” managed the SSBN programme, ever since the ATV project commenced in the late 1970s. Funding for the SSBN project is also confidential and classified, supervised by the prime minister and his national security adviser.
In reality, however, the SSBN project has roots stretching back nearly half a century.
The ATV programme built on Project 932, a small unit launched by the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Marine Engineering in the Seventies and headed by a commander-rank officer under the aegis of the DAE. It was tasked with examining the feasibility of indigenously designing a nuclear propulsion system by miniaturising a reactor, providing suitable containment, and merging it within a submarine hull.
The impetus for Project 932 was India’s 1971 war with Pakistan, which led to the birth of Bangladesh, during which the US – a close ally of Islamabad at the time – sent an aircraft carrier- led task force into the Bay of Bengal to put pressure on New Delhi.
At India’s behest, the Soviet Union in turn dispatched a flotilla of nuclear-powered submarines from Vladivostok. Impressed by the authority of the Soviet nuclear submarines, India’s then prime minister Indira Gandhi decided to indigenously design and deploy similar assets and Project 932 emerged. It progressed incrementally, almost grinding to a halt around 1980 as the DAE’s plans for a reactor proved flawed, but was reinvigorated under the DRDO as the ATV programme.
The ATV project received a further boost in January 1988 after the IN leased INS Chakra – a 5,000-tonne ‘Charlie I’-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) – from Moscow for three years, making India the world’s sixth country to operate such a platform after China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US. Although international treaties forbid the sale of nuclear submarines, leases are permitted provided the boats are not armed with missiles with ranges of over 300 km.
Chakra’ s operations, supervised by Russian naval engineers and personnel, were classified. Just a handful of Indian officers, engineers, and DAE scientists were privy to its entire working, particularly with regard to spent fuel. Senior IN personnel who served aboard Chakra said that the experience was invaluable, laying foundations for India’s nuclear submarine programme. “The lessons learnt from operating Chakra were put to good use in the ATV project,” said a former three-star officer, who declined to be identified.
After Chakra’ s return in 1991, India had planned on leasing four to six additional SSNs, but the disintegration of the Soviet Union put an end to its intentions. Instead, it accelerated the ATV programme, resulting in the DAE sourcing enriched uranium for the submarine’s reactor from the Rare Materials Project at Ratnahalli, near Mysore. The DAE also established a unit at the Madras Atomic Power Station at nearby Kalpakkam to develop and test the ATV’s prototype LWR, while India entered into a collaborative agreement with Russia to miniaturise the ATVs reactor in tandem with the DAE.
Mumbai-based private contractor Larsen & Toubro (L&T) was tasked with constructing the SSBN’s hull at its Hazira facility on India’s west coast and building the vertical launcher to test its under-development K-15 submarine launched ballistic missile. L&T also installed Arihant’ s three 533 mm torpedo tubes.
Arihant was launched in July 2009, and four years later its on-board nuclear reactor attained criticality, enabling sea trials to begin in 2014 and weapon tests over the next two years, before its unannounced commissioning into service in August 2016.
Arihant-and now Arighat’s - crew initially received instruction on operating an SSBN at INS Satavahana, the navy’s School for Advanced Undersea Warfare in Visakhapatnam, on simulators developed by a software company in Bangalore. Operational training was provided later on a Russian Project 971 Shchuka- B (‘Akula’)-class SSN leased for 10 years – lasting through to 2022 – for $ 920 million and confusingly also named INS Chakra. India is expected to lease another SSN to succeed the second Chakra, scheduled for arrival in 2025, but its fate is unknown following sanctions on Moscow for waging war vin Ukraine.
The next two SSBNs – currently designated S4- and possibly named INS Aridhaman- and its successor designated S4* – are expected to be modified, with a slightly larger displacement and armed with the developmental K-4 and K-5 SLBMs, with ranges of 3,500 m and 6,000 m respectively.
Beyond these boats, the DRDO, DAE, and IN are also in an advanced stage of designing a new SSN, six of which were approved for induction into the navy by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in February 2015 for an estimated Rs 500 billion. These SSNs will also be built at the SBC and, like the SSBNs, housed in concrete pens at the new INS Varsha naval base being built at Rambilli, 50 km south of Visakhapatnam.
In a related development concerning vital underwater communication systems for all of India’s submarines, the navy upgraded its very low frequency (VLF) communications station on the east coast in July 2014. Official sources said the communications system at INS Kattabomman – at Tirunelveli, 700 km southwest of Chennai, is an advanced version of a similar VLF facility the navy has been operating at the same location since 1990.
The VLF station was constructed by L&T under the navy’s Project Amber, approved by the MoD’s Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan and the navy’s Maritime Capability Perspective Plan from 2007 to 2022. Under these two Plans, a third VLF station is to be set up north of Tirunelveli on the south eastern Andhra Pradesh coast over the next 8–10 years.
The VLF station is supplemented by an extremely low frequency (ELF) facility – in nuclear- hardened bunkers at the same site – that was inaugurated in early 2012 as part of the overall ATV programme. It is similar to the Russian ZEVS facility near Murmansk, making India the third country besides the US and Russia to operate such a venture.
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