Visakhapatnam, July 26 - The head of India's ambitious project to build a nuclear powered submarine, Vice Admiral (retd) D.S.P. Verma, Sunday said that the vessel is ready and now they have to make its heart, the nuclear reactor, tick.

INS Arihant, the country's first indigenous nuclear powered submarine, was Sunday launched at the Ship Building Centre here, catapulting India into the league of five elite nations.

'The air, oil and water are the fluids running in a submarine and the nuclear reactor is the heart. We have fitted everything and now we have to get the fluids to flow and the heart tick,' Verma told IANS on the sidelines of the launching ceremony.

It will take two years of sea trials before the submarine is commissioned in the Indian Navy.

The top secret Advanced Technology Vessel project, which built the vessel, was conceived in 1984 and the steel for the submarine cut in 1998.

'This is the first time that such a project was conceived and undertaken in the country. ... All the facilities and the infrastructure had to be set up from scratch,' said Verma.

The ATV project has been the result of the active collaboration of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Department of Atomic Energy and other public and private sector undertakings.