Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminium Research Development and Design Centre (JNARDDC) from Nagpur, India is developing an app in collaboration with the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) which will provide a digital database on bauxite and laterite deposits in Maharashtra.
The two institutes are supported by the Geological Survey of India (GSI). The institutes will design the app based on their own database on the size, quality and accessibility of the deposits. The remote sensing satellite data will be superimposed to generate data for R&D sector and the industry.
The app will be incorporated in the JNARDDC and the MoM website and will give information on the total resource, content, thickness, quality, mineralogy and lease boundary of the deposits. Users will be able to use the app on payment.
As confirmed by JNARDDC director Anupam Agnihotri all the information by the institutes will be incorporated in the 'app' by the end of 2018 for users and the Ministry of Mines. Notably, the Ministry of Mines (MoM) is providing INR 69 lakh for the project.
He said that the centre possesses three volumes of data on laterite and bauxite deposits. "To begin with, the two agencies would be making the app only for Maharashtra as a pilot project under the digital India campaign. Gradually the exercise can be extended to all other bauxite rich states," said Agnihotri.
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Pravin Bhukte, principal scientist at JNARDDC, is the coordinator for this project. Bhukte says the Centre would be sampling the deposits with help of GSI and studying the physical and chemical contents or characteristics of the most promising deposits and the alumina percentage in them. "This will help to assess the quality and feasibility of mining the ore," he said.
According to MRSAC director Subrata N Das, the institute will be using the satellite based geo-informatics for generating geospatial data, monitoring, modelling, mapping and analysing.
Associate scientist and project coordinator from MRSAC, Ajay Deshpande said that the app will help the aluminium industry user know about the accessibility to the ore and the feasibility for extraction.
According to the data from MoM, the total bauxite reserves in India are 3,479 million tonnes and India produces 16.4 million tons of bauxite (as per 2014 data). India is the fifth largest producer of bauxite globally. Maharashtra has a total bauxite and laterite deposits of 175 million tons.
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