On science day, AMD’s uranium hope in Gondia

Nagpur: After a discovery in interior Bhandara years ago, Atomic Minerals Exploration Directorate (AMD) now hopes to strike uranium in Gondia district. A survey is in progress at Aamgaon tehsil of Gondia, apart from sites in bordering Rajnandgaon district and Wadrafnagar village in Balrampur district in Chhattisgarh. In Maharashtra, AMD found 355 tons of reserves so far and over 3,900 tons in Chhattisgarh.Protracted surveys have been underway for over two years.
Housed in an unimposing office at Civil Lines where outsiders are normally barred, the AMD’s Central Region office will throw open its gates to students on Wednesday. It is organising a function to mark National Science Day, which marks the birth anniversary of Noble laureate physicist C V Raman.

Apart from its Nagpur office, the seven site camps in remote areas in the central region will also be opened to students. AMD has tied up with the village schools in these areas, said regional director P K Gupta, while talking to reporters here. The organization comes directly under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), instead of a designated ministry like other government units.
“Students will present models of atomic mining and generate awareness on precautions to be adopted for safe uranium mining,” said Gupta.
There are survey camps in Gondia in Vidarbha, Rajnandgaon and Wadrafnagar, Pendra Road in Chhattisgarh and Betul and Sidhi districts in Madhya Pradesh and Jharsuguda district of Odisha. The entire area comes under AMD’s central regional office in Nagpur. Students from nearby village schools will be invited on Science Day.
Once reserves are proven, extraction is taken up by the Uranium Corporation of India, a public sector undertaking. The corporation is undertaking mining at major sites, including the first uranium block at Jaduguda in Jharkand. The reserves found in Bhandara are relatively small, but can be taken up for mining at a later stage, said an official.
AMD’s job is to carry out exploration and prove reserves. The exploration is done on the basis of initial data and further exploration, said the regional director. Apart from uranium, AMD’s mandate is to discover other atomic minerals like Thorium, Lithium, beryllium and rare earth elements (REE).