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Updated: Feb 23, 2020 08:51 IST

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) said on Saturday there was no discovery of a gold deposit estimated to be about 3,350 tonne in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra, a remark that came after reports quoted local mining officials as saying that there was a vast deposit of the resource in the district.

Reacting to the reports, GSI, which is headquartered in Kolkata, said it had carried out gold exploration in the region but the results were not encouraging. “We had carried out an exploration in around 0.5 sq km area, digging as a far as 50m below the ground. Our conservative estimate was that around 160kg of gold, not 3,350 tonnes, could be extracted from more than 52,800 tonnes of ore. This means you can get only around 3.03 grams per tonne of the ore,” said M Sridhar, director general of GSI.

Sonbhadra district mining officer KK Rai had claimed on Friday that gold deposits estimated to be about 3,000 tonne were found in Son Pahadi and Hardi areas of the district.

According to GSI, however, the availability of gold was “very lean” and the agency didn’t find it economically viable to go for further extraction. Its report was later handed over to the state directorate of geology and mining of Uttar Pradesh.

“During our exploration, we dug wells with a spacing of 120m and 50m deep. In our report, we had suggested that if we go deeper and the wells are dug closer (less than 120m) then there is a possibility to find a little more gold than what we had estimated. But certainly not 3,350 tonnes,” said Sridhar.

In its statement, GSI said: “As per the news report, published in various media that the availability of 3350 tonnes of gold in Son Pahadi and Nardi field, Sonbhadra district, it is stated in the news that State Directorate of Geology and Mining, (DGM) Uttar Pradesh has shared this information. Geological Survey of India is not a party to the information published in the news. GSI has not estimated such kind of vast resource of gold deposit in Sonbhadra district, UP.”