Australian diamond major Rio Tinto has set up a diamond sample processing plant at Bunder in Chhattarpur district. The company, which is likely to invest Rs 2,500 crore in diamond exploration, faced some difficulty this year in various clearances. The reports reaching here have also said that the locals shouted slogans against the company in protest against the recent incidents of attacks on Indians in Australia.
The company, according to a government spokesperson, had invested Rs 33 crore in the Bunder sample processing plant. The company had discovered, the spokesperson said, eight lamporite formations and was upbeat on further explorations.
A few months back, the company had written a letter (a copy of which is available with BS) to the state chief secretary on certain hurdles pertaining to clearances. However, later, company’s managing director Nik Senapati had said the project was going on according to schedule.
The Bunder plant, the government spokesperson added, would sample 10 tonnes per hour and required less water than the conventional sample processing. “The project has created 220 jobs so far and 400 jobs are likely to be created,” the spokesperson said.
Rio Tinto had started exploring diamonds in 2004, while the order of magnitude of study released in 2009 of the project indicated inferred resources of 37 million tonne of 0.7 grade carat per tonne of diamond. The Bunder project is yet to be explored in engineering, social and environmental parameters. “If discovered, the diamond will be 20 times more than the Panna mines productivity. The sample processing results are likely to come up by 2009-end,” the spokesperson said. If successful, the state of Madhya Pradesh is likely to be come up among top 10 diamond producing states.