Give mineral industry a push for rapid progress: Expert

Nagpur: Time has come to give thrust on development of mineral industry to support ‘Make in India’ initiative so that rapid progress could be brought about in the sector, said Rabindranath Jha, chief managing director of Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited, on Wednesday.
Scientists should come forward to tap minerals to their potential so that imports could be brought down which, in turn, would save a lot of money and help in nation-building, Jha said. He was speaking as the chief guest on the opening day of a three-day workshop organized by Geological Survey of India on ‘X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and its role in geological studies’ at its Auden Hall.

S Natesan, additional director general and head of department, GSI, central region, Nagpur, was present.

Ranjit Khangar, superintendent geologist and convener of the event said, “Though GSI procured the XRD machine two years back, we require to fully understand the technical know-how so that it could be used to its optimum capacity. A lot of advancements are seen globally in XRD technique. The main agenda of this workshop is to bring along the best minds in the field of geology to discuss and improve the techniques which can help us in upgrading our mineral analysis in light of the latest advancements.”

Ravindra Kumar, DDG of GSI CR, said, “XRD machine is not only helpful in identifying minerals but also has many applications which we need to learn and catch up with global advancements. This workshop will help us achieve that.”

Scientists from Mineral Physics Lab from Lucknow, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Nagpur and National Centre of Excellence in Geoscience Research, GSI, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Faridabad, MECL, Indian Bureau of Mines, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology and Atomic Minerals Directorate, Hyderabad are part of the workshop.

A brief review of fundamentals of qualitative and quantitative XDR analysis was given by the experts. Two eminent scientists, Nicholas Hugo Norberg and Umesh Tiwari from Malvern Panalytic, UK and Singapore respectively, shared their expertise in recent times in the field of XRD analysis such as micro diffraction and Rietveld refinement technique.

(Reporting by Syed Ali)