India plans to open a new permanent research station in Antarctica by March next year, nearly 28 years after it set up its first station in the region, India's Tribune daily reported.
The future station, called Bharati, will be set up in the Larsemann Hills on the eastern part of the South Pole. It will have a work life of 25 years and will accommodate 25 people in the summer and 15 people in the winter.
Director of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) Rasik Ravindra said the new station will be located some 3,000 kilometers (nearly 1,870 miles) from India's currently operational Maitri Station that was opened in 1989.
"The construction of the new station is going on at a hectic speed. The current Indian Antarctic Expedition that sailed off from Cape Town on October 26 under the leadership of Rajesh Asthana will complete the project in this Antarctic summer, hopefully by March 2012," Ravindra said.
India's first research station in Antarctica, Dakshin Gangotri, was opened in 1983. It was decommissioned and buried under ice in 1990, a year after the opening of India's second station Maitri.
