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A shore-based Launch and Recovery System (LARS) Test Plinth was inaugurated on 19 August 2026 at the Submarine Rescue Unit (East), Visakhapatnam.
Vice Admiral Sanjay Bhalla, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, inaugurated the facility.
The LARS is the arrangement that lowers and recovers a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, the platform used to evacuate crew from a disabled submarine.
The plinth allows trials, testing and maintenance of the LARS on shore, without tying the checks to an operational deployment at sea.
India operates two DSRVs - the first commissioned at Mumbai in December 2018 and the second inducted at Visakhapatnam in 2019 - with a rescue depth of up to 650 metres.
When a submarine is disabled on the seabed, the crew cannot simply swim out at depth. A Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle is flown or shipped to the area, lowered from a mother vessel, navigates to the stricken boat, mates with its escape hatch and ferries crew to the surface in batches. The Launch and Recovery System is the winch-and-cradle arrangement that puts the DSRV into the water and gets it back aboard - the step on which the whole rescue depends, and the one performed in the worst sea state. Testing it has until now meant taking the system to sea. A shore-based test plinth reproduces the loads on land, so the machinery can be validated and maintained on a routine schedule rather than only during an operational deployment.
Simple Analogy: It is the difference between servicing a lifeboat davit at the dockside and only ever finding out whether it works when the ship is already sinking.
The Indian Navy commissioned its first Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, giving the western seaboard a rescue capability.
A second DSRV was inducted at Visakhapatnam for the eastern seaboard, so that both coasts are covered.
The shore-based LARS Test Plinth was inaugurated at the Submarine Rescue Unit (East), Visakhapatnam.
| Command | Headquarters | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Western Naval Command | Mumbai, Maharashtra | Operational command for the western seaboard |
| Eastern Naval Command | Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh | Operational command for the eastern seaboard; hosts the Submarine Rescue Unit (East) |
| Southern Naval Command | Kochi, Kerala | The Navy's training command |
| Andaman and Nicobar Command | Port Blair | India's only tri-service theatre command |
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General Knowledge > Indian Navy - commands, equipment and capabilities
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General Awareness > Defence
A small submersible used to evacuate crew from a disabled submarine by mating with its escape hatch and ferrying them to the surface.
The shipborne arrangement that lowers a DSRV into the sea and recovers it afterwards.
Distressed submarine - the naval term for a submarine disabled underwater and requiring rescue.
The officer, of Vice Admiral rank, who heads an operational naval command.