In a first-ever attempt of the country into deep-sea mining, an indigenous deep-sea mining machine will be tested by end of this year. According to reports, a 12-tonne crawler with sensors, pumps and a crusher will be tested on the seabed filled with metals such as cobalt, nickel and copper, located around 6,000 km from the Indian shores. The system will be tested in phases from this year-end. If the trials are successful, India will be the third country, after China and Korea to develop technology for mining poly metallic nodules.

The search for potato-shaped poly metallic nodules will be in a 75,000 sq km region in the central Indian Ocean basin, where India has been exploring for minerals through a contract with the UN?s International Seabed Authority for 15 years. The licence was extended for five years in 2017.