The one-time exercise to be carried out by the Department of Ocean Development (DOD) will delineate the outer limits of the continental shelf and is expected to be completed by the end of 2001.

The delineation exercise will collate all the data required for India to lay claim to the sea-bed areas extending beyond the 200 nautical miles of the EEZ agreed to under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

India will be the second country after Australia to carry out such an exhaustive survey of its sea-bed boundary. The Rs 50 crore project will generate vital data on the thickness of the sediment which will be estimated after extensive seismic surveys in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

India will be able to claim about onemillion square kilometers of additional area in the adjoining seas once the delineation is over. This is in addition to the two million square km of its existing EEZ.

India will have exclusive access to the living and non-living resources like fish, minerals and oil exploration rights in the added sea-bed area, but not navigation rights.

Apart from India, only a few coastal countries have significant areas of continental shelf that extend beyond the 200 nautical mile limit. These include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand, USA and the UK. Under the terms of the UNCLOS, India enjoys sovereign rights over territorial seas of 12 nautical miles and exclusive economic rights over its EEZ of 200 nautical miles.

India, which is a signatory to the UNCLOS, will have to stake claim to the mineral and resource-rich continental shelf before any other country puts in a bid.