STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Union Minister, Dr. Jitendra Singh said here on Wednesday that in the years to come, “Blue Economy” will be major contributor to India’s overall economy and the Deep Ocean Mission announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the core component of it.
The Minister was chairing the first-ever high-level Steering Committee Meeting of Deep Ocean Mission today at Prithvi Bhawan, New Delhi. The Committee consists of Union Ministers of State of Environment, External Affairs, Defence and Finance in addition to Vice Chairman Niti Aayog.
Dr Jitendra said that the Deep Ocean Mission is part of Government of India’s Blue Economy initiative.The mission, said the Minister, heralds India’s ushering into an era of “Blue Economy” which is going to play a major part in building India’s overall economy during the years to come.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, V. Muraleedharan, Minister of State, Ministry of External Affairs, Ajay Bhatt, Minister of State, Ministry of Defense, Suman K Bery, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, Dr M Ravichandran , Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences and other senior officers of various ministries attended the meeting.
The Mission Steering Committee (MSC) is the highest Policy making body constituted under the Deep Ocean Mission (DOM). The MSC will provide broad policy direction to the mission and exercise the main programme and governance for the deep ocean sector and advise the other committee in policy and implementation strategies.
The MSC chaired by Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today reviewed the progress of DOM of various components.
Dr Jitendra further said that the technologies developed under the mission would help in exploration of the oceans and possible harnessing of non-living resources like energy, fresh water and strategic minerals. The design and development of subsystems of the manned submersible to carry three humans has been completed and integration is in progress.
The Minister further mentioned that the design of the mining machine is ready and a demonstration trial of mining crawler on sea bed has been completed in stage 1. It is planned to undertake pumping of nodules to the mother ship during 2026 for which testing of various components is in progress.
Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr M Ravichandranthanked the various ministries for working together to realise the goals of Deep Ocean Mission.
The Deep Ocean Mission was sanctioned in September 2021. The estimated cost of the Mission is Rs. 4047 Cr for 5 years with two phases: Phase I – Rs. 2823.40 Cr. – three years, Phase-II – Rs. 1223.60 Cr. – after successful review of
Phase -I.