Samudrayaan Project

Published: 7th Sep, 2019

India to join developed nations in ocean studies with 'Samudrayaan' project

Context

India to join developed nations in ocean studies with 'Samudrayaan' project

About

The 'Samudrayaan' is a part of the Ministry of Earth Sciences' pilot project for deep ocean mining for rare minerals.
The project proposes to send a submersible vehicle with three persons to a depth of about 6000 metres to carry out deep underwater studies.
The indigenously developed vehicle is capable of crawling on the sea bed at a depth of six kilometre for 72 hours.
Similar to ISRO's plan to carry persons on a space mission, NIOT has undertaken Samudrayaan. The ?200 crore project proposes to carry three persons in a submersible vehicle to a depth of 6000 metres under sea for various studies.
The success of the ''Samudrayaan'' will help India join the league of developed nations in exploration of minerals from oceans.
India has been allocated a site of 75,000 sq km in the Central Indian Ocean Basin by the International Sea Bed Authority for exploration of polymetallic nodules from seabed.
The estimated resource of polymetallic nodules is about 380 million tonnes, containing 4.7 million tonnes of nickel, 4.29 million tonnes of copper and 0.55 million tonnes of cobalt and 92.59 million tonnes of manganese.

International Seabed Authority

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is an intergovernmental body based in Kingston, Jamaica.
It was established to organize, regulate and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, an area underlying most of the world's oceans.
It is an organization established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

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