The Department's Antarctic Study Centre (ASC) at Goa is designed to become a state-of-the-art national facility for conducting front ranking research in the fields of polar sciences. When fully operational, it will be unique facility for low temp. research on ice cores retrieved not only from Antarctica , but also from the Himalayas.
It will also comprise of an Antarctic museum and a database repository on polar sciences. The construction of the Phase I of the building comprising logistic, administrative, residential and service blocks, the ASC started functioning from the new premises from December, 1997.