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Minerals are the life-line of any nation and thankfully India has been tremendously blessed with this gift of nature. The first recorded history of mining in India dates back to 1774, when East Indian Company granted permission to English Company for mining coal in Raniganj. In 1880 M/s John Taylor & Sons Ltd. said to have started gold mining in Kolar Gold Files. The first oil well was drilled in Digboi in 1866, close on the heels of first ever oil well drilled anywhere in the world viz. in Pennsylvania State, USA in 1859.
Before the start of this century, mining in India was quite prehistoric in nature and humble in scale. However, with rapid industrialization the demand and the production of various minerals have consistently climbed up. Post-independence the growth of mining under the impact of successive Five Year Plan has been on the rise. There are aggressive plans in coal, metalliferous and oil sectors to enhance production of minerals during the 8th Five Plan and thereafter.
Coal: Discovery and Deposits
India’s major coal exploration happens to be at two distinct locations -Permian and the Tertiary. Around 99 percent of the country’s coal resources are found around leading present day river valleys viz, Pranhita-Godavari, Pench-Kanhan, Damodar, Koel, Sone-Mahanadi. Almost 50 coalfields, ranging from km2 to as much as 1500 km2 are in operation today, apart from the small and lenticular occurrences of coal alongside the Himalayan foothills.
Coal of all sorts can be found in India except peat and anthracite. However, sub-bituminous and bituminous coal is found in larger amounts as opposed to lignite. Indian bituminous coals could be segregated into two categories, cooking and non-cooking.
Coal exploration in India is largely based on traditional methods like systematic geological mapping followed by drilling, core drilling playing a prominent role. Nonetheless in the recent years, contemporary exploration techniques like photo-geology, remote sensing, non-coring drilling, geophysical surveys etc are being more and more used for in-depth and defined exploration.
Mineral Wealth (Other than Coal & Oil)
India has in abundant minerals like barytes, bauxite, chromite, dolomite, fluorspar, gypsum, limestone, manganese ore, iron ore, kyanite, magnesite, sillimanite, etc. except the minerals like copper, asbestos, lead and zinc, natural phosphates, sulphur and crude petroleum, in which domestic production meets the demand only partially.
Today, India has resources of 12745 million tonnes of iron ore, 2,525 million tonnes of bauxite, 233 million tonnes of magnesite, 76446 million tonnes of limestone, 70 million tonnes of barytes, 167 million tonnes of lead & zinc ore, 176 million tonnes of manganese ore and 90 million tonnes of chromite.
The iron ore consist of 7 percent, bauxite 16 percent and manganese reserves almost 6% of the total known global resources of these minerals. India is said to own the largest known reserves of barytes in the world.
Oil Wealth
India reportedly has 17 billion tonnes of hydrocarbon reserves of which about 5 billion tomes have been transformed into geological in-place reserves. This highlights the magnitude of exploratory works that still needs to be carried out.
Functional Mines
India has a very unique blend of big and small, manual and mechanized, open cast as well as underground mines. The total number of functional coal mines today stands at 572, in oil sector. Nearly 2500 metalliferous mines are contributing in terms of returns. However, the total number of metalliferous mines today stands around 6000. Most of these mines are quite small, seasonal in nature and are not submitting in statutory returns. The total workforce of the mining industry in India today stands around one million workers.
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