India Has Sent a Scientific Expedition to Antarctica Every Year Since 1981, Built Three Stations There and Passed the Indian Antarctic Act of 2022

India’s first scientific expedition to Antarctica left Goa on 6 December 1981 with 21 members. The website of the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) lists 44 completed expeditions, counting that first one. On 28 October 2026 it showed the 45th as under way and the 46th as scheduled for October or November 2026. India runs two year-round stations on the continent, Maitri and Bharati, and has approved a third to replace Maitri.

A phone call in June 1981 and a ship from Goa

Down To Earth reports that in June 1981 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi phoned the environment secretary, S. Z. Qasim, and asked whether India could reach Antarctica. Qasim, who had only academic knowledge of the continent, said yes, and he led the 21-member team that sailed that December.

The ship got stuck in pack ice and, in Down To Earth’s account, reached the coast only after three failed attempts. The landing date differs by source. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) reply in the Lok Sabha says the expedition reached Antarctica on 8 January 1982. The Antarctic Treaty’s list of historic sites says a plaque at the later Dakshin Gangotri station names the members of the expedition that landed nearby on 9 January 1982.

The mission was kept secret. A PTI report from 1 December 2023, written when NCPOR in Vasco, Goa, honoured the first-expedition members, quotes team member Amitava Sen Gupta saying the operation “was top secret”. He said the team trained on a Navy ship whose trainers did not know what the training was for. The same report says that before 1981 Indian researchers took part in Soviet expeditions, and that Paramjit Singh Sehra was the first Indian to reach the continent, in 1971, with one of them.

India signed the Antarctic Treaty on 19 August 1983 and became a Consultative Party, one of the countries that vote on Antarctic decisions, on 12 September 1983. The Treaty Secretariat’s parties page now lists 29 Consultative Parties and 29 non-Consultative Parties.

Dakshin Gangotri, the wooden base built in a single summer

The first station, Dakshin Gangotri, was commissioned in 1983 on the ice shelf off the Princess Astrid Coast in central Dronning Maud Land. India’s own environmental evaluation for a later station describes it as a base of wooden huts “built in the record time of an austral summer”. The PTI report says Harsh K. Gupta headed the team that set it up, and that the Prime Minister helped during India’s third expedition.

Down To Earth says that since the 1983 to 1984 season some team members have stayed through the winter. Snow kept building up on the ice shelf. India’s environmental evaluation says it was decommissioned in 1989 because of excessive snow accumulation. The PIB’s 2015 reply says it was abandoned in 1990 after being buried under snow. The site is now Historic Site and Monument number 44 under the Antarctic Treaty system.

Maitri, a station on stilts on bare rock

Maitri replaced it on a rocky, ice-free patch of the Schirmacher Oasis, about 100 km from the coast and about 50 m above sea level, at 70°45’52” S, 11°44’03” E. NCPOR says Maitri was built in 1988, and the PIB’s 2015 reply says it has operated since 1988. The PIB’s 2022 release says it was commissioned in 1989. Government documents use both dates.

The main building stands on steel stilts and takes 25 people in summer and winter, with containerised living modules for about 40 in summer. NCPOR says satellite channels carry voice, video and data to mainland India. Maitri is also the base for geological work in the mountains to its south: Indian geologists have mapped about 20,000 sq km of the Wohlthat, Orvin and Muhlig Hoffmann ranges, according to the PIB and the environmental evaluation.

Bharati, built from 134 containers

Bharati was commissioned on 18 March 2012 in the Larsemann Hills, between Thala Fjord and Quilty Bay, about 3,000 km east of Maitri. NCPOR says it sits about 35 m above sea level at 69°24.41’ S, 76°11.72’ E, and that the building went up in 127 days. It measures 30 m by 50 m (2,162 sq m), has three 100 kVA combined heat and power units and a fuel farm of about 3 lakh (300,000) litres.

New Atlas, reporting in 2013, says the station is made of 134 shipping containers prefabricated in Germany, shipped through Antwerp and Cape Town and assembled on site in the summer of late 2011 into 2012. It credits the architects bof architekten, says the outer walls were shaped with wind-tunnel tests to limit snow drifts, and says the building can be taken apart without leaving a trace, as the Antarctic Treaty requires.

NCPOR gives Bharati’s capacity as 47 people in the main building all year, plus 25 more in summer camps or emergency shelters. New Atlas reports 47 in summer and about 24 in winter.

What India’s teams measure

India’s environmental evaluation for the Larsemann Hills base lists geology among its aims. It notes that the Prydz Bay area and India’s Eastern Ghats belt once formed one landmass, so rocks on the two coasts can be compared.

NCPOR lists climate change as the programme’s broader theme. Some of the results the government has put on record:

• Ozone has been monitored at Maitri since 1987, and the station carries the World Meteorological Organization index number 89514. The PIB’s 2015 reply says Maitri’s ozone data show the Antarctic recovery is slower than the Arctic’s. The wider recovery story is in tuput’s piece on the ozone layer.
• Indian scientists account for 30 of the 240 new bacterial species found in Antarctica, the PIB’s 2015 reply says. Two bacteria were named after Dakshin Gangotri and Maitri.
• A 101.4 m ice core drilled in 2014 was the longest by Indian scientists at that date. Ice cores record volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa in 1883 and Tambora in 1815, the PIB reply says.
• In November 2010 an eight-member team travelled from Maitri to the South Pole, reaching it on 21 November and returning on 1 December, NCPOR records, covering 2,300 km in temperatures down to minus 57 C.

The programme has grown with the teams. The 1981 party had 21 members. The Asian Forum for Polar Sciences reports 103 participants from 18 organisations in the 44th expedition, announced on 29 July 2025. A glider deployed in the Southern Ocean on 3 February 2025 and recovered on 7 April 2025 covered about 1,200 km. Radar mapped more than 400 km of the Nivl Ice Shelf, and scientists from India, Belgium and Japan took lake-sediment cores in the Larsemann Hills. Ice and ocean work closer to home is covered in tuput’s pieces on Himalayan glaciers and India’s Deep Ocean Mission.

The PIB’s 2015 reply puts total spending on the three stations and the expeditions, from 1981 to 1982 through 2014 to 2015, at Rs 1,473.39 crore.

The Indian Antarctic Act of 2022

Parliament gave India its own Antarctic law in 2022. The Lok Sabha passed the bill on 22 July, the Rajya Sabha on 1 August, and the President gave assent on 6 August 2022, according to the PIB and the Gazette of India.

The Act applies to Indian expeditions, stations, vessels and aircraft. Its main requirements, read from the text:

• No one in an Indian expedition may enter or stay in Antarctica, and no one may enter an Indian station, without a permit or the written authorisation of another party to the Antarctic environmental protocol (sections 4 and 5).
• Mineral resource activity needs a permit, and a permit may be issued only for scientific research or for building and maintaining Indian stations and related structures (section 7).
• Nuclear explosions and the disposal of radioactive waste are prohibited (section 17). The penalty for a nuclear explosion is at least 20 years in prison, up to life, and a fine of at least Rs 50 crore. For dumping radioactive waste it is at least 14 years, up to life, and a fine of at least Rs 25 crore.
• Entering Antarctica without a permit carries up to two years in prison, or a fine of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, or both (section 41).

A Committee on Antarctic Governance and Environmental Protection, chaired by the Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, issues the permits. Minister Jitendra Singh called the planned body the Indian Antarctic Authority when the Lok Sabha passed the bill, but the Act’s text calls it the Committee. The Indian Antarctic Environmental Protection Rules, 2023, notified in the Gazette on 7 August 2023, set out the application forms and require a report within three months of finishing an activity.

Kochi in 2024, and Maitri-II

India hosted the 46th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the 26th meeting of its Committee for Environmental Protection in Kochi from 20 to 30 May 2024. The PIB says the parties adopted 17 revised or new management plans for specially protected areas, and that a working group on Antarctic tourism met. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju announced plans for a new station, Maitri-II.

On 21 December 2023 the Ministry told the Rajya Sabha that the existing Maitri is “very old” and that a site for the new station near it had been identified, with construction due to finish in January 2029. The PIB’s description of Maitri-II lists modern laboratories, advanced ice-core storage, a microbial research suite and wider atmospheric observation. On 10 December 2025 the Ministry said it had approved Rs 29.2 crore for design and the detailed project report, and that Maitri-II is expected to be complete by 2032.