Mission Ready, Built in India: Inside iNDiC, the Bengaluru Brand Building India’s Own Diving Gear

Karishma Shah
By
Karishma Shah
Co-founder of Exceptional Technology. Karishma leads editorial and operations for exceptional.technology — the showcase of the best of Indian technology and engineering — and co-runs Excep...
Summarize with AI

India has sent divers to the high-altitude lakes of the Himalayas and the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, yet every serious piece of diving kit they carried down with them came from abroad. That is the gap a Bengaluru company has spent nearly two decades preparing to close. On 22 August 2026, Planet Scuba India launched iNDiC, a homegrown diving equipment brand the company calls India’s first — spanning marine mobility, underwater electronics and diving systems, all developed and manufactured in India.

Matsya, iNDiC's diver propulsion vehicle, gliding through open water

Matsya, iNDiC’s diver propulsion vehicle, gliding through open water. Visualisation based on Planet Scuba India’s official unveiling photograph.

The brand was launched by Dr R. Indu Shekar, Director of the Defence Bioengineering & Electromedical Laboratory (DEBEL), the DRDO unit that works on breathing and life-support systems. Planet Scuba India was founded in 2008 and has spent eighteen years supplying diving systems to India’s defence forces, alongside its work as a PADI Five Star Dive Center. iNDiC is the moment that experience turns into manufacturing.

Five systems, one underwater ecosystem

iNDiC arrives not as a single product but as a portfolio. PranKosh is the open-circuit diving system, Meen CR the combat rebreather, SagarCom the wireless underwater communication system, Garuda the helicopter emergency breathing system, and Matsya the diver propulsion vehicle — the sleek carbon-fibre underwater scooter unveiled on stage at the launch. Together they cover the full arc of a military dive: breathing, moving, talking and getting out safely.

The company calls the wider programme the iNDiC Network, an underwater engineering ecosystem built in India, and the first five systems are moving through production, testing and certification. Every one of them was shaped first around the operational requirements of the Indian Armed Forces, then designed from the outset for a wider international market.

Matsya diver propulsion vehicle above the seabed

Matsya above the seabed. Visualisation based on Planet Scuba India’s official unveiling photograph.

Built for the hardest water on Earth

The equipment is made for some of the most demanding underwater environments anywhere — from the thin-air lakes of the Himalayas to the deep Indian Ocean. That range is deliberate: the company says it combined its own engineering and manufacturing strength with its long experience in diving systems and access to international technology to build mission-ready equipment for exactly those extremes.

“India is the only global power that does not have its own established diving equipment manufacturing ecosystem. With iNDiC, we are changing that,” said Madhava Reddy, Founder & Managing Director of Planet Scuba India. “Today, we have all the skills and capabilities to design, engineer, and manufacture underwater equipment within the country.”

Eighteen years in the making

Dr Indu Shekar called it “extremely heartening to see that Planet Scuba India and Madhava Reddy have made such significant progress in indigenising diving equipment in India.” Maj Gen Tejinder Jaggi (Retd), Chairperson of Planet Scuba India, said the company had “successfully bridged a vital gap in our defence supply ecosystem,” adding: “We are immensely proud to supply the Indian Armed Forces with high-precision Swadeshi underwater technology.”

It is a quietly significant milestone. The countries that build their own diving systems are few, and the field has long been dominated by international manufacturers. With iNDiC, India now has a brand of its own in the water — designed in Bengaluru, built for its own forces, and aimed at the world. From rebreathers to diver propulsion vehicles, the gear Indian divers carry down is finally starting to come from home.

Keep reading: AI Takes the Helm: Inside Zen Technologies’ Next-Generation Ship Handling Simulator · Fifteen People, Five Warships: Inside AstraYAN’s Propulsion Win for the Navy’s Next Corvettes · More Shipbuilding & Maritime stories

Like stories like this? Add Exceptional Technology as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting in your search results and Discover feed.

Share This Article
Co-founder of Exceptional Technology. Karishma leads editorial and operations for exceptional.technology — the showcase of the best of Indian technology and engineering — and co-runs Excep Technology, a Pune-based creative and technology studio.