The Geological Survey of India (GSI), which is focusing on mineral exploration, is looking to complete its geochemical mapping by 2018-19 and geophysical mapping by 2021, an official said here on Thursday.
"GSI has taken a quantum jump in mineral exploration... my priority has been to give more and more auctionable blocks to centre and state governments," GSI Director General Dinesh Gupta told reporters.
"We are carrying out geophysical and geochemical mapping. Because the area is big, making it time consuming, we have prioritized the OGP (obvious geological potential) area of 0.571 million sq km to work on," he added.
The GSI has achieved a geological mapping with a coverage of 99.35 per cent. It has also covered 9.3 lakh sq km area by geochemical mapping by March 2018 while coverage under geophysical mapping was 5.89 lakh sq km by the end of the same timeline.
It is also working on national landslide zone mapping in all the landslide-affected states for which it has collaborated with British Geological Survey and Natural Resource, Canada, Gupta said, adding that 1.71 lakh sq km area has already been covered and the remaining would be covered by 2020.
"We are preparing the systematic mapping of different landslide vulnerable zones of different states. Already, 60 per cent of work is over and we will prepare the map soon. In that, we identify which areas are more susceptible to landslides. We are installing advance warning system," he said.
--IANS
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