Indian Navy SSN programme

The Government of India approved the construction of 6 nuclear powered submarines in February 2015. These will be designed by the Navy's in-house Directorate of Naval Design and indigenously built in Shipbuilding Centre Visakhapatnam. Expertise gained in the construction of the Arihant class SSBNs will be transferred to the SSN project. Since, India a traditional user of Russian nuclear submarines (INS Chakra on lease) the new domestically built submarines are likely to be based on of Akula-class submarines.

Development
The submarines will be powered by a miniature pressurised water reactor (PWR) being developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre which has already supplied a similar 83 MW miniature reactor for the Arihant-class SSBNs.