<span style="color: #222222;">Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh launched the Indian manned Ocean Mission Samudrayan in Chennai on Friday. The Minister said that India has joined the elite club of Nations such as the USA, Russia, Japan, France and China to have such underwater vehicles for carrying out sub sea activities. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He informed that the Ministry of Earth Sciences is carrying out deep ocean exploration of the non living resources such as polymetallic manganese nodules,gas hydrates,hydrothermal sulphides and cobalt crusts located at a depth between 1000 and 5500 metres. He said that sea trials of 500 metre rated shallow water version of the manned submersible are expected to take place in the last quarter of 2022 and the MATSYA 6000, the deep water manned submersible will be ready for trials by the second quarter of 2024. The Minister said that NIOT is indigenously developing a manned submersible designed to carry three persons in 2.1 diameter Titanium Alloy Personal Sphere with an operational endurance of 12 hours and systems to support emergency endurance upto 96 hours.</span>