India has embarked on an ambitious Rs10,000-crore deep sea mission, likely to commence by the year end, to explore and mine mineral wealth beneath the ocean floor, a top government official said.

Ministry of earth sciences secretary Madhavan Nair Rajeevan said on Tuesday that the Rs10,000-crore project was an interministerial and interdisciplinary project. “It is expected to begin from end of the year year,” Nair said. Speaking on the sidelines of a programme to mark the commencement of ship-building by Titagarh Wagons Ltd, he said that a cabinet note on the project was under preparation.

Mr. Rajeevan, who is also chairman of the Polymetallic Nodules Assessment Committee was addressing a workshop on ‘Three decades of India acquiring Pioneer Investor Status — Achievements and way forward’ at the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography(NIO).

The program on poly metallic nodules was initiated at CSIR-NIO with the collection of the first nodule sample from Arabian Sea on board the first research vessel Gaveshani on January 26,1981. India was the first country in the world to have been given the pioneer area for exploration of deep-sea mineral, namely, polymetallic nodules in the Central Indian Ocean Basin in 1987.

Source: thehindu.com, livemint.com