The mineral production index of mining and quarrying sector for the month of September stood at 99.5 which is 4.6% higher as compared to the same month last year according to the data released by Ministry of Mines. This number corresponds to December 2011 data as base year.
Few significant minerals including Coal, Diamond, Iron and Copper showed a positive trend. Coal production witnessed a surge of 12.1%, Diamond production increased by 37.3%, Iron ore by 9.1%, Copper conc by 18.5%. Phosphorite, bauxite and Limestone also registered growth of 87.6%, 5.5% and 4.7% respectively.
According to Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) preliminary statistics, the cumulative growth from April through September 2022–23 over the same period in the previous year is 4.2%.
Few other important minerals showed negative growth: Natural Gas (U) (-1.7%), Petroleum (crude) (-2.3%), Manganese ore (-4.7%), Magnesite (-15.3%), Chromite (-19.6%), Gold (-20.7%), Lignite (-22.0%), Lead conc (-30.1%), and Zinc conc (-66.1%).
Production level of important minerals in September, 2022 were:
Metallic minerals
Bauxite production stood at 1667 thousand tonnes, Chromite 116 thousand tonnes, Copper conc. 10 thousand tonnes , Gold 92 kg, Iron ore 166 lakh tonnes, Lead conc. 22 thousand tonnes, Manganese ore 163 thousand tonnes and Zinc conc. 45 thousand tonnes
Non-metallic minerals
Limestone 305 lakh tonnes, Phosphorite 150 thousand tonnes, Magnesite 10 thousand tonnes, and Diamond 70 carat
