• In order to identify seismically hazardous zones and encourage mapping activities, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) launched 22 permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) stations across India, which is a part of its objective to establish and maintain a network of continuously operating 35 permanent GPS stations in a phased manner.

• 22 GPS permanent stations have been set up and remaining 13 will be operational by March 2020.

• The 22 GPS-Geodetic (pertaining to Geodesy, the science of earth measurement) observatories are located in Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur, Pune, Dehradun, Chennai, Jabalpur, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Raipur, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar Visakhapatnam, Agartala, Itanagar, Mangan, Jammu, Lucknow, Nagpur, Shillong and Little Andaman.

• The other 13 stations will be located in Aizawl, Faridabad, Uttarkashi, Pithoragarh, Cooch Behar, Zawar, North Andaman, Middle Andaman, South Andaman, Ranchi, Mangalore, Imphal and Chitradurga.