Bihar district in spotlight after Centre’s largest gold reserve remark
PATNA: Karmatia village under Sono block in Bihar’s Maoist-infested Jamui district has hogged the limelight following Union minister Pralhad Joshi’s statement in the Lok Sabha that the sleepy hamlet claimed to have India’s largest gold reserves.
On Wednesday, the Union minister in a written reply to a question raised by BJP Bihar state president Sanjay Jaiswal, MP, revealed that around 222.885 million tones of gold metal is available, including 37.6 tones of mineral-rich ore, in Jamui district alone.
“The country has a total primary gold ore reserve of 501.83 tonnes. Of which, 654.74 tonnes are gold. Of this, 44% gold has been found only in Bihar,” said Jaiswal, quoting the reply of the union mining minister in his letter in the lower House.
On being contacted, Jamui District Magistrate Avneesh Kumar Singh said, “I sought a report from Sono Circle Officer Rajesh Kumar after the matter was raised in the parliament. The CO’s report is based on a survey earlier conducted by a Geological Survey of India (GSI) team in the Karmatia goldfield in the district, near the Jharkhand border.”
GSI had last visited the area to conduct a survey in 2015.
“The team stayed at the Sono block headquarters for several months after which it submitted its report to the Union government. Since then there is no development on this front,” the DM told TNIE.
He, however, revealed that it would prove a game-changer for the entire Naxal affected belt, if the high-ups in the union ministry took up the matter and excavation started in the goldfield.
Karmatia village under Churhait panchayat is spread over 1,000 acres of land, which has a strong possibility of having gold reserves, the DM said.