Mining Developments of India in Recent Years One

India – Mining

Minerals accounted for 20% of exports. An estimated 4,400 mines operated in the country. Most mines were small surface operations using only handtool methods. There were also 300 underground mines in the nonfuel sector, most of which were operated manually. Employment in the minerals industry was estimated at more than 1 million (4.5% of the employed labor force), with the public sector employing 90% of the total. Total exports represented 10% of GDP in 2001, with jewelry leading the growth. The country exploited 52 minerals—11 metallic, 38 non-metallic, and three mineral fuels. Increases in production were noted for bauxite, cathode copper, crude oil, iron ore, steel, and other minerals.

Industrial mineral operations were unscathed by the January 2001 earthquake in Gujarat and Rajasthan; infrastructure repairs were under way. In 2001, India also produced lead, monazite, selenium, silver, ilmenite, rutile, tungsten, Uranium, zircon, corundum, garnet, jasper, asbestos, barite (from the Cuddapah District mines, Andhra Pradesh), bromine, hydraulic cement, chalk, clays (including ball clay, diaspore, fireclay, and kaolin), ore, fluorspar, agate, aquamarine, emerald, ruby, spinel, graphite, kyanite, sillimanite, lime, magnesite, nitrogen, rock, apatite, ocher, mineral and natural pigments, pyrites, salt, soda ash, calcite, dolomite, rock, quartz, quartzite, sand (including calcareous and silica), slate, talc, pyrophyllite, steatite (soapstone), vermiculite, and wollastonite.

Output of iron content in mined ore totaled 50.7 million tons in 2001, up from 44.9 in 1999. Iron ore reserves, estimated at 11,000 million tons of hematite ore containing at least 55% iron, were among the largest in the world. Principal iron ore output came from the rich fields along the Bihar-Orissa border, close to all major existing iron and steel works. Smaller amounts were mined in the Bababudan Hills of Karnataka and elsewhere. The joint venture Rio Tinto Orissa Mining Ltd. studied a new mining project, in the Gandhamardan/Malanjtoli areas of Orissa, that had ore reserves of 800 million tons and could start in 2006, produce 25 million tons per year by its fifth year, and have an eventual capacity of 50 million tons per year.

India’s gross weight output of bauxite was 8.4 million tons in 2001, up from 6.1 in 1998. Bauxite deposits were estimated at 2,300 million tons. The state-owned National Aluminium Co. Ltd. (Nalco), which doubled its mining capacity to 4.8 million tons per year, was to be privatized by the government in 2001. Nalco’s Panchpatmali Hills, Koraput District mines, in Orissa, had a production capacity of 2.4 million tons per year.

Production of zinc concentrates (zinc content) in 2001 was 146,000 tons. The state-owned Hindustan Zinc Ltd. (HZL), which was for sale, planned to close its Sargipalli lead mine (150,000 tons per year capacity), in Orissa; HZL’s Rampura Agucha mines (1.3 million tons per year lead-zinc ore capacity), in Rajasthan, were highly prized.

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