Around two years after its closure, Hindustan Salts limited, a central Government enterprise, will shortly begin production of rock salts in the mines of Himachal Pradesh that were closed down after the state government had withdrawn permission for mining.
Hindustan Salt has applied afresh for seeking transfer of the land for extracting rock salt at Darang of Mandi district. The only rock salt mines in north India that was closed after the state government detected several lapses in the permission granted to the company.
Hindustan Salt limited was barred from carrying out mining activity in the state after several complaints were received against the company by State Government. Investigation found that several laws were flouted by the company after which the industry and mining activity was shut down.
The State Government had then said that mining activity was carried out in Darang constituency of Mandi district in violation of forest act and without any forest clearance.Senior officials main tained that codal formalities for transfer of lands will be completed soon and officials of the company will be visiting the state to hold talks with the state government.
Officials maintained that Hindustan Salt limited had not paid a royalty of over Rs. 15 lakhs to the state government and company has even conveyed to the state government that it will not be able to pay the entire amount in totality due to bad financial health.
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 varies from producing 400-500 tonnes per month.
Hindustan Salt limited has its own rock salt mines at Mandi in Himachal Pradesh where 116 million metric tonnes of proven rock salt deposit exist. Rock salt mines in Darang in Mandi existed prior to independence and run by salt department. Mines were transferred to the Hindustan Salt limited company in 1959.
Rock salt produced is utilised in for feeding Cattle. Salt produced at Darang mostly caters to the need of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.