India’s Rs 750 cr plan to counter China at sea

In a strategic move, India will invest Rs. 750 crore in the next five years to counter presence of big brother China in oceans including the disputed South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.

Updated on: Jul 4, 2012, 23:10:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a strategic move, India will invest Rs. 750 crore in the next five years to counter presence of big brother China in oceans including the disputed South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.

Country's top scientific minds on Wednesday decided to allocate the money to existing scientific organisation including Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Geological Survey of India (GSI) to enhance India's capabilities in deep sea mining.

"We will like our presence felt in deep sea mining," said minister of state for science and technology Ashwini Kumar, after a decision in this regard was taken at a meeting in Planning Commission.

Only a few countries such as China, United States, Russia and South Korea has capabilities to conduct mining below the sea surface to extract oil and other rare minerals such as Titanium, Platinum, Manganese, Copper, Cobalt and Nickel.

In addition to minerals, the government is looking at its vast 2,500 sq km ocean bed to produce ocean thermal energy and discover new drugs and food items. "There is a lot we can get from the Oceans," Kumar said.

But, deep sea mining is a highly specialized job and needs sophisticated vessels for it. The ministry of earth sciences has a vessel, Sagar Nidhi, to explore minerals at a depth of 6000 meters from the sea surface. In July, a much modern vessel will join the work and in couple of years there would be one more costing Rs 200 crore.

Planning Commission member in-charge of science and technology K Kasturirangan said the decisions taken at the meeting would enhance India's scientific abilities. In this regard, the panel agreed to provide funds for identifying 200 scientists and 2000 researchers for enhancing India's super-computing ability. The money will also be used to set up 200 specialised centers connected to the National Knowledge Network.

The panel also approved a proposal allowing Bhaba Atomic Research Centre to acquire 2014 Peta flop super computer to enhance its nuclear research capabilities. In addition, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to get a super computer of 360 tera flops. Flops is a measure of computing ability. Peta flops is a level higher than tera flops.

Kumar said the decisions will infuse scientific temper in the 12th five year plan to make India competitive in the world market and will bridge "scientific and technological" gaps. "PM has told me that the money will not be a constraint to improve scientific temper in the country," he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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