India's indigenous nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant will be operational by 2012.This will complete the nation's capability to deliver strategic weapons from land, air and undersea. Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma said at his annual press conference in New Delhi that the Arihant, which was launched at Visakhapatnam last year, was making good progress. The nuclear triad, he said, would be complete only when India has strategic nuclear missiles that could be launched from land, air and sea. Explaining the hiccups in the project, he said there were some delays with regard to indigenous equipment that would be fitted on the submarine. India had formally launched INS Arihant in July last year and it would be the first in the series of three nuclear- powered submarines that India is building indigenously with some help from the Russians. It is in the process of possessing a family of nuclear-tipped missiles including the Agni series, Prithvi variants, naval missile Dhanush, and submarine launched Sagarika. Asked about media reports from Russia openly talking of India leasing its Akula-II 'Nerpa' nuclear powered submarine for 10 years, Verma refused to say anything. The reports have said that India was getting the Nerpa by March next year and would operate it for 10 years to train its naval personnel to work on the nuclear-powered submarine fleet it is building starting with Arihant. In the late 1980s, India had operated another Russian nuclear submarine by christening it as INS Chakra for about three years, again on lease.