India’s Oceanographic Research Programme

Set Up: The Department of Oceanograph Development was established in 1981 to promote research and development in the marine sector. Since then considerable research work has been done which included the Antarctic Research Programme.
Antarctic Research Programme: Antarctic, the last continent explored by man, was discovered by Captain John Davis, an American hunter, on Feb. 7, 1821. It has a landmass of about 14 million sq km situated almost circulatory around the South Pole. Only 5% of the land is visible and the rest is covered by a vast stretch of ice going to a depth of about 2000 m. It has immense value and potential of marine and mineral resources.
Research Programme: The first expedition landed on Dec. 6, 1981. Since then several expeditions have been made on a regular basis, India was accorded ‘pioneer status’ by the U.N. Conference on the Laws of the Sea in April 1982. On August 17, 1987, the country was registered as a ‘pioneer investor’ and marine site of 1,50,000 sq km in the Central Indian Ocean basin was allotted to carry on the research and development work. India is the first development country to have received this registration and first country in the world to have secured registration of the marine site.

Antarctic-Expeditions

Number	Year	No. of Team	Team Me Members	Remarks Leader
First	Dec. 1981/Jan. 1982	21	Dr. S.Z. Qasim
Second	Dec. 1982/Jan. 1983	28	DrV.K. Raina
Third	April/March 1984	83	Dr H.K. Gupta	First permanent station’Dakshin Gangotri established
Fourth	Dec. 1984/March 1985	82	Dr B.B. Bhattacharji
Fifth	Nov. 1985/Feb. 1986	88	Mr. M.K. kaul
Sixth	Dec. 1986/March 1987	90	Dr A.H. Parulekar
Seventh	Nov. 1987/March 1988	92	Dr. D.R S Sengupta
Eight	Dec. 1988/March 1989	58	Dr Amitava Sengupta	Second permanent station ‘Maitree’ constructed
Ninth	Nov. 1999/March 1990	72	Dr. R. Ravindra
Tenth	Nov. 1990/March 1991	72
Eleventh	Nov. 1991/March 1992	98	Dr S. Mukherji	‘Sodar’ (Sound detection and ranging system) installed

Circumnavigation: ‘Trishna; is a 37 feet cube fiberglass yacht which sailed around the world manned by the officers of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. It sailed from Mumbai on September 29, 1985 and covered a distance of 30,000 nautical miles in 15 months in 15 months before completing its journey at Colombo on December 21, 1980.

The was the first expedition undertaken by the Indians to circumnavigate the earth.