India may lose control over 1 million sq. km. of ocean

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MAY 25. India may lose control over more than one million square kilometres of ocean because of the Government's laxity in providing the Geological Survey of India (GSI) with the latest equipment, including a ship.

According to the United Nations Law of the Seas, all member countries have a first claim to the marine resources on their continental shelf. This continental shelf has been defined as the sea floor till 350 km from the shore but only above 500 metres in depth. Unless a country identifies and marks out its continental shelf by December 2004, it is liable to lose its claim of exclusive economic zone on it and these waters will be classified as international waters.

At present the GSI, with the help of its World War II vintage ship, Samudramanthan, has been able to map only upto 200 km from the shore or an area equal to the land mass of India. This ship carries upto 16 scientists and 64 crew and can stay at sea without docking only for 25 days. The GSI has been requisitioning the Government of India for a new ship for the last five years but has still not been provided one. Giving this information at a press conference at the Geological Survey of India campus here today, its Director General, Mr. Ravi Shankar, said that the new ship will cost about Rs. 300 crore. The GSI has already completed survey of over 98 per cent of India's coastline of over 7,000 km.

Detailed district maps

Currently the GSI is preparing detailed thematic maps for all the 550 districts in India. Of these, more than 100 were already printed and available to the public. The large amount of data relating to the land patterns, geological details, mineral contents and topography that were available with the GSI was being made available to the public at large for better planning of both Government works and private enterprises.

Mr. Ravi Shankar said "Environment problems develop because land use is not in tune with the capability of the land" and the present exercise of providing detailed thematic maps for each district was an attempt to redress such wrong planning. "Delhi is a textbook example of how land should not be used. Unfortunately, we are only called for the post-mortem," he said.

Salinity of coastal areas

In Andhra Pradesh, like in other parts of the country, the indiscriminate use of groundwater was leading to a situation where it would soon become impossible to recharge these underground aquifers. Reports from the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka show a rapid ingress of saline water due to the depletion of groundwater in these areas. Aquaculture and prawn farming in many of these areas has accentuated this problem manifold. Sea water, being heavier, cannot be pushed back once it pollutes the groundwater in coastal areas and many generations will suffer the adverse affects of environmental damage caused by salinity.

Contribution of GSI

Speaking about the contribution of the GSI to the development of independent India, Mr Ravi Shankar highlighted the fact that many of India's premier Public Sector Undertakings like the Oil and Natural Gas Commission and the Central Groundwater Board were formed out of GSI. Similar was the case with the Department of Atomic Minerals and the Indian Bureau of Mines, all of which began their work on the basis of GSI's data and manpower. He identified the role of the GSI as one of discovering and assessing natural resources which could then be used by relevant public and private sector companies.

Apart from this the GSI also advised various agencies regarding the building of dams, bridges and roads. It had a large base of scientists researching on earthquakes even though recording seismic activity was formally the responsibility of the Meteorological Department. Mr. Ravi Shankar stressed "it was not earthquakes which killed people but faulty structures". He gave the example of the earthquake which struck Seattle a few weeks after the Bhuj earthquake and was similar in intensity but killed only one woman while thousands perished in Gujarat.

An interesting fact which emerged was that the first seismograph was used in India in the immediate aftermath of the 1897 Assam earthquake.

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