GSI working on to find graphite, gold deposits in Bengal, natural hydrogen in Andaman

Kolkata: The Geological Survey of India is working on 14 projects in West Bengal to find possible deposits of minerals such as graphite, gold and titanium in four southern districts, GSI Director General Asit Saha said on Thursday.

GSI is also carrying out an exploration of natural hydrogen projects in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

For the first time in the country, GSI has identified and explored significant natural hydrogen potential in collaboration with IIT (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad which will strengthen India's path towards a sustainable, low-carbon technology and clean energy transmission, he said.

Presently, the 175-year-old agency is working on around 500 mineral exploration projects all over the country with Rs 4,000 crore earmarked for them, Saha told reporters here.

In West Bengal, GSI's projects are in Purulia, Bankura, Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram belt falling in the Chhotonagpur plateau. The explorations are aimed at finding and extracting possible deposits of minerals like graphite, gold and titanium, he said.

The exploration for the gold project is being undertaken in the Purulia-Bankura belt of Jangal Mahal neighbouring Jharkhand.

Saha said while 25 blocks with mineral deposits have already been auctioned all over the country in recent times, there has been no such auction in West Bengal.

GSI has planned around 1,200 projects for critical mineral exploration between financial years 2024-25 and 2030-31. In the 2024-25 fiscal, 195 mineral exploration projects are being executed, while 227 projects are in the pipeline for 2025-26, he said.

So far as offshore mineral development is concerned, GSI has submitted 35 Geological Memorandum blocks for auctioning to the Ministry of Mines, Saha said.

"These include 16 blocks for heavy mineral deposits, nine for construction sand, three for lime mud and seven for polymetallic crust and nodules," he said.

GSI is harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) to transform mineral exploration and geoscience data analysis and identify new mineral prospective zones.

"A key initiative under this domain is the Mineral Prospectivity Mapping (MPM) programme which inter-alia uses algorithms to analyse geological datasets and delineate high potential mineral zones," he said.

GSI has already executed seven projects in this AI/ML domain in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Gujarat, he said.