Secretary of Mining Amit Sharma on Tuesday chaired a meeting at the Civil Secretariat held regarding the finalisation of strategy for conducting a detailed exploration study of ‘Jammu Sapphire’ located in Padder area of Kishtwar district.

The meeting was attended by experts from the Mining Department, Director Geology and Mining, O P Bhagat, Additional Secretary, Mining Arun Kishore Kotwal, Director Geological Survey of India (GSI), J&K, Ajay Kumar, General Manager, Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Limited (MECL) P Ravindran, MD J-K Minerals Limited, Vikram K Gupta, geologists, and others. The GSI team made a detailed presentation about their exploratory studies conducted during the last two to three years in the Khan area of Padder regarding the presence of Sapphire and Ruby-like precious gems in different Adits, mostly in Corundum form.

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Later, the MECL team made a presentation on detailed exploration plans of this Central PSU that has been assigned the task of conducting detailed exploration in the upcoming summer months in the area, as a specialist, purely on scientific lines, by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir.

“Different Steering Committees at the policy level and the execution level shall be created by the government so as to ensure hassle-free completion of this project in a time-bound manner before the end of this working season. Detailed timelines shall be shared by MECL, the adherence to which shall be reviewed on a weekly basis by the government,” Amit Sharma said.

The Secretary also asked the Deputy Commissioner, Kishtwar, Devansh Yadav, to extend full support to the Working Group led by the Director of Geology and Mining for this upcoming detailed exploration of Padder Mines in Kishtwar.

Being initiated by MECL through NMET Funding on scientific lines, this initiative is the first of a kind launched under the leadership of Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha and the guidance of Chief Secretary, Dr Arun K Mehta.

“The visiting officers of MECL assured that they will use the best machinery and experienced workforce to make this operation a huge success. Later, Secretary also advised MD, JKML to share all past experiences which they gained while exploring and mining Sapphire in Padder during the last few years so that MECL exploration goes on smoothly and they can improvise upon same by using the latest methodologies, and drone surveillance and similar techniques for achieving multiple success in the challenging limited time,” a statement released on Tuesday said.