UCIL hold public hearing for re-establishing recovery plant

The Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) today held a public hearing in connection with the re-establishment of the uranium recovery plant at Mosaboni in East Singhbhum district, officials of the PSU said.

Several villagers raised their concern over issues such as employment and environment at the hearing and the issues raised by them has been responded to satisfactorily, they said.

The proposed plant would be set up on over 4.158 ha of land near Rangamatiya and Badia villages of Mosabani block.

The UCIL had constructed the uranium recovery plant in the early 1980s in the copper township of Mosabani to extract uranium bearing material from the copper concentrator plant of the Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL).

The HCL closed down its mines and the concentrator plant in 2002 due to variable demand, and, subsequently, the UCIL also discontinued operations at the uranium recovery plant, the officials said.

Recently, the HCL has restarted work in its mines and concentrator plant and, accordingly, the UCIL also decided to build a new recovery plant at Mosabani.

The officials said the UCIL would invest around Rs 50 crore in the initial phase and total investment was likely to be around Rs 95 crore.