As race hots up for the frozen continent, India plans Station No 3 in Antarctica

Twenty years ago, India established its first permanent station, Dakshin Gangotri, in the frozen continent of Antarctica. Four years later, ...

Twenty years ago, India established its first permanent station, Dakshin Gangotri, in the frozen continent of Antarctica. Four years later, came Maitri after the Gangotri ice-shelf had outlived its life. And now the stage is set for a third station to unlock the secrets of the frozen continent.

Situated 600 km east of Maitri, the new station lies near the foot of the Larsemann hills. It will be completed at the cost of Rs 15 crore over the next ‘‘three to four’’ Antarctic summers.

Union Minister for Science and Technology and Ocean Development Kapil Sibal is scheduled to travel there between February 1-5 next year when it’s summer, when local temperatures are a balmy zero degrees but can even dip to 60 below.

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The new site, Sibal says, will be examined under the governing Antarctic Treaty System. What this means that is that besides exploration and scientific experiments to map weather data—and its effect on the monsoons—the Government is also looking at the possibility of asserting ‘‘sovereign rights’’ via domestic or territorial laws to the claimed sectors.

Ocean Development Secretary Harsh Gupta says that while commercial use of the Antarctic is frozen by the 1991 Madrid Protocol, India will put its case for this 600-km stretch of land whenever the legal claims for such usage are decided by the international community. ‘‘Sibal will himself visit the new site and examine India’s legal position,’’ says Gupta, who led the first scientific expedition to establish Dakshin Gangotri in 1984.

Since the days of Gangotri, New Delhi posts 65 scientists during summer months (between November and February) and 25 during winter. The Ocean Development department spends more than Rs 20 crore annually on the upkeep of Maitri after Gangotri was abandoned.

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