The intriguing history of mineral exploration in Reasi, J&K’s lithium village

Lithium deposits discovered in J&K's Reisa (Image Source: Irfan Amin Malik)

Reasi: Before the Geological Survey of India (GSI) detected lithium in Salal village of Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district, the villagers already had clues about the presence of certain minerals in the region.

On February 9 when the ministry of mines announced the discovery of nearly 6 million tonnes of lithium reserves in Salal, around 77 kilometres from Jammu, villagers recalled a non-local cement manufacturing company, Orissa Cement Limited (now known as Dalmia Bharat Limited), extracting the raw material from the area between 1970 and 1980.
What really happened in the 1970s?

It is not clear if the company was actually extracting lithium, also known as “white gold” but the locals clearly remember mining and extraction around the rough and high terrain.

“Some 40 years back the Orissa-based cement company came here along with men and machinery to extract the raw material from our village. Back then I also worked with their employees to collect the stones from the village to load them in trucks,” said Jaswant Singh, a vegetable seller.

55-year-old Singh recalled that the company officials had informed the villagers about the presence of aluminium and iron in what is now being called the lithium village of India. “The company hired a few labourers from the village and took away the raw material before winding up their operations,” said Singh.

Deputy Sarpanch Salal Rajinder Singh said that in 1973, the Orissa Cement employees were manually extracting stones from the village. “We saw them working here for 6-7 years and they also constructed our main road in Salal. Back then the material was loaded into trucks to Jammu and from Jammu railway station the material was ferried to Orissa. At that time no one had any idea about the presence of lithium here.”
Vipin Sharma, a school teacher from Salal, told Moneycontrol that the cement company had explored a 2.9 square kilometre area and carved out a 3 kilometre road from the village to the main town, Reasi. “The raw material, which as per company officials contained minerals, was transported to Orissa from Jammu.”

Pooja Bharadwaj, who works with Dalmia Bharat Limited’s Corporate Communications team, said that the company had carried out mining operations in J&K for refractories in the 1970s and 80s. “The company was doing mining to get kiln refractories for cement although I do not have any document to confirm this. I have gathered information of the company's refractory activities in J&K from various sources,” Pooja said in an email to Moneycontrol.
However, officials at the district geology and mining office in Reasi claim to have no information about the operations by OCL in the 1970s. “We have no record of the work and progress of the Orissa Cement Limited in Salal. But in 2018, for the first time, the GSI team reached Salal and took samples for identification of certain minerals, including lithium,” said Naveen Kumar, assistant district mineral officer Reasi.First signs of lithium

Even that statement is not entirely accurate. The potential for lithium reserves in Salal was first noted in 1990, when geologists KK Sharma and SC Uppal studied samples and spotted promising signs in Reasi district, then a part of Udhampur district. They proposed further exploratory work.

Sharma and Uppal had carried out trace studies and reported on the potential presence of abundant quantities of lithium reserves at the foothills of the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Salal village. The 67-page report, prepared in 1999 by the two GSI scientists, identified Salal village as a promising site for future exploration. The geochemical mapping by the scientists analysed more than 200 samples in the area and mentioned the presence of lithium in average concentrations of about 831 parts per million at some sites.

Despite the 1999 report neither the local government nor the central government showed any interest to undertake detailed excavations in the area as there was little demand for lithium then.

The mining ministry, without even mentioning the 1999 Sharma-Uppal report, claimed that lithium was discovered in J&K due to field investigations conducted since 2018-19 that had shown possible deposits of gold and other minerals in 11 states.

On February 9, Union Mines Secretary Vivek Bharadwaj, while speaking at the 62nd Central Geological Programming Board meeting in New Delhi, revealed that lithium reserves had been “discovered in the country” in Jammu and Kashmir.

Construction, poaching and protection

Singh and other villagers said the locals had been using the material for construction over the years. “No one is doing any mining here but the villagers have been using these stones for construction purposes. Because until now these were simply stones for us — we have no geological knowledge.”

Preetam Singh, the Sarpanch of Salal, said that the villagers, without knowing about the lithium, would also crush the stones into small pieces to hunt wild animals. “The tiny stones were used in antique guns for poaching and protecting agricultural fields from animals.”

According to Singh, nearly 75 percent of the land in the village has lithium-type stones and rocks.

The lithium discovery is crucial, given that it comes at a time when India is going all out for a green transition, particularly in transportation, where electric vehicle adoption is being given a big push. Lithium is used in the batteries that power EVs, mobile phones and other applications, and the discovery will be a boost for the government’s Make in India programme.