Around two years after closure, Hindustan Salts limited, a Central Government enterprise, has now come up with a proposal of Rs 300 crore investment in the State for rock salt mining.
The company is working on modalities and according to senior officials, Darang mines of rock salt in Mandi district has been identified for the purpose. Mining work will soon resume in the mines of Himachal Pradesh that were closed down after the State Government had withdrawn permission of mining.
Recently Hindustan Salt limited had applied afresh for seeking transfer of the land for extracting rock salt at Darang which is the only rock salt mine in Northern India. The Government had withdrawn the permission for mining by the company after several lapses were detected in the mining activity which was done allegedly by flouting mining rules and environment laws.
Recently, several top officials of the company had visited the State and the proposed site and after negotiation at the highest level, the company has proposed Rs 300 crore investments for the Darang mines of Mandi district.
Senior Industries department officials maintained that formalities for transfer of lands will be completed soon as the discussions are on advanced stage. The land will be transferred to the company for mining activity as it has agreed to the terms and conditions of the state government.
In the high level meeting with officials, issue of royalty to be paid by the company to the state government also cropped up and it was agreed that it should be paid in installments. Company will be using ‘solution mining technique’ to extract rock salt in contrast to existing dry mining technique used to extract salt. The production of rock salt will take place to the amount of 400-500 tonnes per month.
Rock salt mines in Mandi district has estimated reserves of 116 million metric tonnes of proven rock salt deposits. The Darang mines are one of the oldest mines of the country and existed prior to Independence which was run by salt department. These Mines were transferred to the Hindustan Salt limited company in 1959, and used to cater mostly the need of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.