In 1981 the then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi gave a thrust to the dreams of Indian scientists when she approved a programme to send Indian Scientific Expeditions to Antarctica.
The First expedition was launched in December 1981, headed by Dr S.Z. Qasim, a marine biologist of International repute. The expedition touched the Princess Astrid Coast, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica on 9th January 1982. The team stayed in the continent for 10 days and set up a summer base. Some scientific experiments were performed.
Following year, the Second Indian Antarctic Expedition stayed on the continent for almost two months during the austral summer and selected a site for India’s permanent base. The Third Indian Antarctic Expedition built a permanent station named Dakshin Gangotri within a record time of just one polar summer of 1983-84. A 12 member contingent of the Indian team out of the Third expedition stayed back as India’s first ever wintering party under the Leadership of Col. S.S. Sharma. Since then, every year a ‘winter’ team goes to Antarctica, maintaining round-the-year Indian presence on the continent.
India acceded to the Antarctic Treaty in August 1983 and the very next moth, in September 1983, India was given the status of a Consultative Party to the Treaty with full voting rights. India became the 16th member-nation of the Treaty, only the second Asian Country after Japan. The other member-nations in the Treaty before India were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, UK, UA and USSR.
In October 1984, India joined the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and in 1986 became a member of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)
Since the first station Dakshin Gangotri (70 5.56’ South Latitude and 12 00’ East Longitude) was built on a dynamic ice shelf, it had a limited life. In 1988-89 season, India built a second station Maitri (70 45.95’ South Latitude and 11 44.15’ East Longitude) on the rocky grounds of Schirmacher Oasis, about 100 km inland from the coast. Dakhin Gangotri station over-lived its promised life and by 1989 it was nearly completely entombed by accumulating snow. The station was abandoned in 1990 and since then winter teams have started living and working at/from maitri.
In 2003-04 austral summer, India identified the site for a third Antarctic station in Larsemann Hills (69 24.552’ South Latitude and 76 11.206’ East Longitude in Prydz Bay region which is ~3000 km east of Maitri by sea route. In 2009, a summer base already exists at this place and construction process is underway for making a permanent research station.
The Indian Antarctic Expeditions are organized by National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean research (NCAOR), Goa which functions under the aegis of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), New Delhi. There are about 30 scientific and logistic institutions which contribute to the Indian Antarctic Programme. Some of the major participants, besides GSI, are India Meteorological Department, Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, National Physical Laboratory, Physical research Laboratory, Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment, Defence Electronic Applications Laboratory, Survey of India, Botanical Survey of India, Zoological Survey of India, Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotarny, Jadavpur University and Banaras Hindu University.