Mining secy visits site of lithium reserves in J&K’s Reasi
Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir mining department, Amit Sharma, inspected the site of lithium reserves in Salal Haimana area of Reasi district on Saturday where he interacted with locals and met deputy magistrate Babila Rakwal to discuss relief and rehabilitation plan for people
Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir mining department, Amit Sharma, inspected the site of lithium reserves in Salal Haimana area of Reasi district on Saturday where he interacted with locals and met deputy magistrate Babila Rakwal to discuss relief and rehabilitation plan for people.
Since the discovery of 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves in February this year, not much progress has been made in securing the ‘white gold’ spread in three square km area.
“Today, we visited the reserves to assess what is the ground situation and what are the structures there. The three sq km area has been demarcated. We interacted with the locals too,” Sharma said.
“The district administration is working on it (rehab plan). We will soon be initiating the process of appointing transaction advisers. Once they are finalised, they will help us in starting the bidding process for the actual exploration of the lithium,” he added.
He said a school, a primary health centre and several houses besides a road are located over the reserves.
Sharma said directions were issued to the DC to come up with a proper relief and rehab plan.
The mining secretary said that lithium exploration within India will give a push to green economy, especially in the sector of electric vehicles.
“All precautions and due care will be taken during the exploration because environment should never get endangered. That is our top priority,” Sharma said.
Meanwhile, officials in the know of matter said that exploration of lithium would serve the purpose if metallurgical plants also come up in its vicinity.
“A special economic zone with two to three metallurgical plants should be set up for churning out finished product. Otherwise, exporting raw material in trains outside Jammu won’t be of much help to shore up the region’s economy and at the same time tide over spiraling unemployment,” they said.
Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and is one of the key components in EV batteries.
The reserves are situated in Salal Kotli village, around 22km from Reasi district headquarters.
The Geological Survey of India for the first time had established 5.9 million tonnes inferred resources (G3) of lithium in Salal Haimana area.
Initially, bauxite was found in the ore but in further surveys lithium, titanium and aluminium were discovered in it.
It may be stated here that total lithium deposits with China are 5.1 million tones and with the USA 7.9 MT.
