MATSYA-6000 Progress Reviewed at ESSC Meeting

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Dr Jitendra Singh chaired the second General Body Meeting of the Earth System Sciences Council (ESSC) on 10 November 2026. He asked the ministry’s institutions to carry their findings to ordinary citizens in plain language, saying research outcomes deserve to be told as stories people can follow.

Five institutions under review

The meeting went through the annual reports and audited accounts for 2025-26 of the five bodies that make up the council: the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), the National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR). Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences Dr T. Srinivasa Kumar and CSIR Director General Dr N. Kalaiselvi were among those present.

Deep Ocean Mission and MATSYA-6000

The minister was briefed on India’s human deep-sea programme, built around MATSYA-6000, the country’s submersible rated for a depth of 6,000 metres. Indian aquanauts completed dives of 4,025 metres and 5,002 metres during an Indo-French expedition aboard the French submersible Nautile, a step towards crewed descent in Indian waters.

Work across the ministry

• NIOT reported desalination solutions for Lakshadweep, offshore fish cage technology, deep-sea mineral exploration and ocean thermal energy conversion.
• IITM presented advances under Mission Mausam and the PRITHVI programme, including the Bharat Forecasting System and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in prediction.
• INCOIS described multilingual marine advisories and swell-surge inundation forecasts for fishermen and coastal communities.
• NCESS reported research on landslides, tectonic processes, atmospheric aerosols and rainfall over the Western Ghats.

NCPOR placed before the meeting its 45th Indian Antarctic Expedition, which had 95 members, the 16th Indian Arctic Expedition, glacier monitoring in the Himalayas and studies in the Southern Ocean. Dr Jitendra Singh proposed that polar and solid earth sciences be pursued in mission mode so that results come faster, and he called the institutions an extended scientific family that should keep sharing ideas outside formal meetings as well.