Work to be expedited, results to be visible in next few months: Secretary Mining

Jammu, Aug 13: Union Secretary Mining, V L Kanta Rao has assured that Lithium exploration work in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir will be expedited and within next few months, the results will be visible.

This assurance has come in inter-ministerial meeting held on August 12, a day after the Union Minister of Coal and Mines G Kishan Reddy deliberated on the need to expedite all ongoing exploration projects in J&K and all mineral rich states in the 6th Governing Body meeting of the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET), held at New Delhi.

Earlier on July 22, Reddy had informed that the government would soon complete the exploration process of Lithium deposits in Jammu region and it would be followed by the auction process.

“The Government of India, in collaboration with the J&K government, has started the exploration process of the Lithium deposits, identified by Geological Survey of India (GSI) in Jammu region. The process is going apace. After the completion of the exploration process, we will immediately initiate its auction process,” Reddy had assured, in a reply in the Parliament.

Prior to it, in July, 2024, the government had scrapped the auction of Lithium block in Salal-Haimna area of Reasi along with two other critical mineral blocks in Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, under the third tranche of sale on mines, due to lower (than required) number of bidders. In the case of the Lithium block in Reasi, the auction was scrapped for the second time.

In March this year, the first auction was also scrapped due to lukewarm response from the bidders.

The Mining Secretary’s assurance came in response to the call of Union Minister of State in PMO Dr Jitendra Singh in the Inter-Ministerial meeting of National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET), to expedite Lithium exploration in J&K.

Notably in December, 2023, the Ministry of Mines had launched a new scheme to directly sanction exploration projects to Notified Private Exploration Agencies (NPEAs) for critical and deep-seated minerals to give impetus to their (critical minerals’) exploration.

Further, the Ministry had also allowed these NPEAs to bid for auction for mineral blocks explored by them, which was not allowed earlier.

For J&K, this decision was of great significance after the Geological Survey of India (GSI), after its ‘preliminary exploration’, had confirmed an inferred resource (G3) of 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium ore in Salal-Haimna areas of Reasi district in Jammu region in 2023.

Lithium was among critical and strategic minerals, twenty blocks of which as part of the first-ever tranche auction was launched by the Ministry of Mines on November 29, 2023.

The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, MMDR Act was amended through the MMDR Amendment Act, 2021, with effect from March 28, 2021 which, inter alia, empowers the central government to notify entities, including private entities, that may undertake prospecting operations.

The interested private exploration agencies are required to obtain accreditation in accordance with the scheme of the Ministry of Mines and thereafter apply to the Ministry for their notification under the second proviso to sub-section (1) of section 4 of the Act.

Since March, 2022 the Ministry of Mines has notified 23 Private Exploration Agencies (PEAs) to take up exploration projects through state governments, funded by NMET.