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Fresh continental-shelf claim
April 30 , 2025
18 hrs 0 min
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- India has increased its claim in the Central Arabian Sea, as part of its ‘extended continental shelf’ by nearly 10,000 square km.
- It also modified an earlier claim to avoid a long-standing dispute with Pakistan over the maritime boundary between the two countries.
- Coastal countries have an ‘exclusive economic zone,” (EEZ) which gives exclusive mining and fishing rights, up to 200 nautical miles from their coastlines.
- In addition to this, such states can also make claims for more area in the ocean provided they can scientifically establish to a UN body, called the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).
- For this, the claimed area extends unbroken from their landmass all the way till the sea bed.
- India already has 12 nautical miles of territorial sea and 200 nautical miles of the EEZ measured from the baselines.
- India made its first claim in 2009 in vast stretches of sea spanning the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
- Some parts of India’s continental shelf claims in the Arabian Sea overlap with that of Oman.
- However, the two countries have an agreement in place since 2010 that while the continental shelf between them is yet to be delimited, it is ‘not under dispute.’
- But there is a dispute with Pakistan over the Sir Creek, a strip of water in the marshes of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.
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