India's Maitri II Research Station Construction Delayed to 2032

The completion of the Maitri II, India’s next-generation research station in East Antarctica, has been pushed back to 2032, and scientific operations are likely to commence even later, according to the government. In December 2023, when the government first announced the need to establish Maitri II in East Antarctica, the projected construction completion timeline was January 2029. The site for the successor of Maitri I, established in 1989 in the Schirmacher Oasis, was also identified two years ago. In his response in Parliament to a question on Maitri II posed by A Raja, a Lok Sabha MP of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science and Technology, and Earth Sciences, said last week, “The projected timeline for Maitri II to become operational is estimated as seven years with expected completion by 2032.”