Kishtwar: The Jammu and Kashmir administration is planning to carrying out a thorough exploration investigation of Sapphire, which is located in the Padder area of the Kishtwar district.
Sapphire is the most precious and valuable blue gemstone. It is a very desirable gemstone due to its excellent color, hardness, durability, and luster. In the gem trade, Sapphire without any color prefix refers to the blue variety of the mineral corundum.
Amit Sharma, the secretary of mining Jammu and Kashmir, presided over a meeting on Tuesday at the civil secretariat in this regard.
The meeting was attended by experts from the Mining Department, Director Geology and Mining, O P Bhagat, Additional Secretary, Mining Arun Kishore Kotwal, Director Geological Survey of India (GSI), J&K, Ajay Kumar, General Manager, Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Limited (MECL) P Ravindran, MD J-K Minerals Limited, Vikram K Gupta, geologists, and others.
The GSI team made a detailed presentation about their exploratory studies conducted during the last two to three years in the Khan area of Padder regarding the presence of Sapphire and Ruby-like precious gems in different Adits, mostly in Corundum form.
Later, the MECL team made a presentation on detailed exploration plans of this Central PSU that has been assigned the task of conducting detailed exploration in the upcoming summer months in the area, as a specialist, purely on scientific lines, by the administration of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Different Steering Committees at the policy level and the execution level shall be created by the government so as to ensure hassle-free completion of this project in a time-bound manner before the end of this working season. Detailed timelines shall be shared by MECL, the adherence to which shall be reviewed on a weekly basis,” Amit Sharma said.
The Secretary also asked the Deputy Commissioner, Kishtwar, Devansh Yadav, to extend full support to the Working Group led by the Director of Geology and Mining for this upcoming detailed exploration of Padder Mines in Kishtwar.
Being initiated by MECL through NMET Funding on scientific lines, this initiative is the first of a kind launched under the leadership of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha and the guidance of Chief Secretary, Dr Arun K Mehta.
“The visiting officers of MECL assured that they will use the best machinery and experienced workforce to make this operation a huge success. Later, Secretary also advised MD, JKML to share all past experiences which they gained while exploring and mining Sapphire in Padder during the last few years so that MECL exploration goes on smoothly and they can improvise upon same by using the latest methodologies, and drone surveillance and similar techniques for achieving multiple success in the challenging limited time,” a statement released on Tuesday said.
Earlier in February, the Geological Survey of India said it found lithium deposits for the first time in Reasi district.
GSI said it found 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium inferred resources.
It said lithium inferred resources (G3) of 5.9 million tonnes have been found in Salal-Haimana area of Reasi.
The lithium deposits are very critical for India as the government has been focussing on electric cars.
District Mineral Officer Reasi Shafiq Ahmad had said that there was the presence of Bauxite in composite form, and during its further processing Lithium was also discovered.
“GSI has now approved it and it will be taken for auction after Lithium reserves were found. We had explored it earlier also but now this time it has been approved by GSI,” he had said.
He added it will now be taken up for auction at the country and UT level as it is a major mineral and has been found the first time in the country.
