India's non-atomic and fuel mineral production up by 13%

India produced over Rs 1.13 lakh crore worth of minerals, excluding atomic and fuel minerals, during 2017-18, an increase of 13 per cent over the previous year.

According to the annual report 2017-18 by the Ministry of Mines, the value of metallic minerals stood at Rs 53,029 crore while non-metallic minerals including minor minerals was at Rs 60,512 crore.

The total value of mineral production (excluding atomic and fuel minerals) has been estimated at Rs 1,13,541 crore, which shows an increase of about 13 per cent over that of the previous year," it said.

"During 2017-18, estimated value for metallic minerals was Rs 53,029 crore or 47.7 per cent of the total value and non-metallic minerals including minor minerals is Rs 60,512 crore or 53.3 per cent of the total value," the report said.

The number of mines which reported mineral production (excluding atomic, fuel and minor minerals) in India was 1531 in 2017-18 as against 1508 in the previous year.

Out of 1531 reporting mines, 230 were located in Tamil Nadu, followed by Madhya Pradesh (197) Gujarat (191), Karnataka (142), Odisha (132), Andhra Pradesh (129), Chhattisgarh (112), Goa (87), Rajasthan (85), Maharashtra (75) and Jharkhand (58).

"These 10 states together accounted for 94 per cent of total number of mines in the country in 2017-18," it said.

Rajasthan is in leading position in terms of estimated value of mineral production in the country.

It had a 20.26 per cent share in the national output, followed by Odisha with 17.77 per cent share and Andhra Pradesh with 9.45 per cent.

The total domestic production of aluminium metal during FY 2016-17 was about 2.86 million tonnes.

In FY17-18, it is expected to increase to about 3.2 million tonnes, as domestic aluminium producers ramp up output to achieve higher capacity utilization.

The Indian primary aluminium industry consists of three major players -National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO), Hindalco Industries and Vedanta Ltd., having total installed smelting capacity of about 4.1 million tonnes, presently.