Well, there was a time when India was called the “Golden Bird.” However, after the end of British exploits of around 200 years, the country only knew the pain of partition, poverty, and famine. With only three gold mines and 618.2 tonnes of gold deposits, the country is far from being the “Golden Bird” of the yesteryears.
Recently, reports of the discovery of gold mines with 3,500 tonnes of gold reserves in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh broke out in Indian newspapers. The news was widely circulated on news channels and social media.
Reportedly, Sonbhadra mines gold deposits were approximated to be around 3,500 tonnes and worth Rs 12 lakh crore, which is almost five times India’s current gold reserve.
Representative Image: Deccan Chronicles
The reports quoted District Mining Officer, K.K. Rai, who said, with this discovery, India’s current gold reserve of 618.2 tonnes would reach the second place in the world behind the US, which has 8,133.5 tonnes of gold.
A seven-member team was constituted for geo-tagging of mineral sites. K.K. Rai said that a team of Department of Geology and Mining, and Geological Survey of India (GSI) was engaged in this task.
While the country and countrymen rejoiced in the news, it didn’t occur to anyone to verify the authenticity of this news. However, after two days, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) denied any participation in such a discovery and backed off from the claims of the district mining officer about the discovery of a huge gold reserve in Uttar Pradesh.
GSI stated in a press release that the exploration was carried out in field season 1998-99 and 1999-2000.
The mineralised zone having an average grade of 3.03 grams per tonne of gold is tentative in nature and the total gold which can be extracted from the total resource of 52,806.25 tonnes of ore is approximately 160 kg and not 3,350 tonnes as mentioned in the media.
Though there had been no statement confirming the news from either the Ministry of Mines or the Geological Survey of India, Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs and Civil Aviation, tweeted that after the massive gold discovery in Sonbhadra, India would now have the world’s second-largest gold reserves.
Later, GSI denied the discovery of gold deposits in UP, clarified the confusion and provided the real numbers.
However, the original news was about the discovery of gold ore and not the amount of gold extracted. It was evidently the origin of the confusion for media and social media users.
The misreporting on the subject not only questions the authenticity of the statement of Sonbhadra District Mining Officer K.K. Rai but also the negligence of the media as well.
Via: Times of India