Nipun DSV commissioning is scheduled for 31 August at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, where the Indian Navy will formally induct the second Diving Support Vessel (DSV) of the Nistar class. The ceremony marks the point at which the ship moves from delivered platform to commissioned warship.

Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), Visakhapatnam, designed and built Nipun indigenously. The vessel was handed over to the Navy on 30 July, after an extended round of outfitting and sea trials that followed its delivery milestone.


What Nipun DSV commissioning adds to the Navy

Nipun is a purpose built platform for a wide spectrum of diving and underwater operations. It carries modern diving systems and underwater intervention equipment, letting divers work in sustained fashion under demanding sea conditions. The ship will also add to the Navy's ability to support submarine rescue missions, standing alongside its sister ship Nistar in that role.

Navigation, platform management and precise station keeping systems sit alongside dedicated diving, underwater intervention and medical support facilities aboard the vessel. Together they let Nipun function as one integrated platform for complex work beneath the surface, rather than a collection of separate systems bolted onto a general purpose hull.

A second hull after Nistar

Nipun and Nistar were launched together at HSL's Visakhapatnam yard in September 2022, under a contract the Navy signed with the shipyard in September 2018. Nistar went on to reach commissioning in July 2025, becoming the Navy's first indigenously designed and built DSV.

Nipun's own delivery in July followed roughly a year on from that, with the Navy citing indigenous content near 75 percent on the ship at handover, a figure the yard reached with heavy reliance on domestic vendors rather than imported systems. The Nipun DSV commissioning now closes out the pair, giving the Navy a full Nistar class of two ships in active service.

A crest built around a whale and a diving helmet

The commissioning will also formalise Nipun's crest, designed around the ship's role as a Diving Support Vessel. A whale on the crest signifies endurance and the capacity to remain submerged for long stretches, standing in for the ship's own ability to sustain prolonged diving operations in a difficult deep sea environment. A modern diving helmet represents the diver at the centre of the ship's mission, and the advanced life support systems Nipun carries to keep that diver safe at depth.

Together, the Navy describes the two symbols as representing a single idea: taking a diver into the depths, sustaining the diver there, and bringing the diver back safely.

Where Nipun sits among India's diving platforms

The Navy has been building out its diving and underwater support fleet on more than one track this year. Titagarh Rail Systems separately closed out a five ship order of smaller Diving Support Craft at its Kolkata yard, vessels built for coastal and harbour diving work rather than the deep sea, long endurance missions the Nistar class DSVs are designed for.

Nipun and Nistar sit at the top of that capability.

Growing capability of India's shipbuilding base

More than 120 MSME vendors across India were engaged in building the two Nistar class ships, sourcing yard material, equipment and services through the government's GeM procurement portal, a base the Navy has continued to draw on through delivery and outfitting.

The commissioning lands in a year that has also seen Cochin Shipyard launch its own run of indigenous shallow water combatants, part of a wider shift under way at Indian yards, moving from general purpose hulls toward specialised, technically demanding platforms of the kind the Nistar class represents.

Nipun's induction at Mumbai will place it under the Western Naval Command's operational reach, giving the Navy a DSV based on each coast once the ship is formally commissioned.