Silver is another precious metal produced in India. It is valued next only to gold for making ornaments due to its softness and attractive white colour. It had been an important currency metal in several parts of the world. It is also used in the manufacture of chemicals, electroplating, photography and for colouring glass, etc. Like gold, India is poor in silver deposit also. Traces of silver occur in Hazaribag, Palamu, Ranchi and Singhbhum districts of Jharkhand; Cuddapah, Guntur and Kurnool districts of Andhra Pradesh; Vadodara in Gujarat, Bellary district of Karnataka, Baramula district of Jammu and Kashmir and Almora district of Uttarakhand.
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Diamonds
Diamonds are found in ancient hard metamorphic rocks of Panna belt in Madhya Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool and Anantpur districts), Chhattisgarh (Raipur district) are other producers. Cutting and polishing of diamonds is done in Gujarat (Surat, Ahmedabad, Navasasi Bhavnagar, Khambhat), Maharashtra (Mumbai), Kerala (issur) and Goa.
Nickel
Nickel does not occur free in nature and is found in association with copper, uranium and other metals. It is used as an important alloying material. Most of the reserves are found in Odisha (Cuttak, Keonjhar and Mayurbhani), Jharkhand (Singhbhum), Rajasthan (Khetri-Jaipur region), Karnataka (Hassan and Kolar), Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala. Odisha has the largest deposits.
Lead
Lead is a widely used metal due to its malleability, softness, heaviness and bad conductivity of heat. Rajasthan (Udaipur, Banswara and Alwar districts), Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool, Guntur, districts), Telangana (Nalgonda, Khamman)Tamil Nadu (North Arcot Ambedkar and South Arcot Vallalar districts), Uttarakhand (Tehri Garwal and Pithoragarh districts), Jharkhand (Hazaribagh, Singhbhum, Ranchi and Palamu), Jammu and Kashmir (Baramulla and Udhampur), Madhya Pradesh (Hoshangabad, Shivpuri, Gwalior), Chhattisgarh (Bilaspur, Sarguja and Durg), West Bengal (Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling).
Tungsten
It is a valuable metal of which the chief ore is wolfram. Deposits of wolfram, the chief ore of tungsten, are found in Degana (near Rewat Hills) in Rajasthan and Chendpathar in Bankura district of West Bengal. Seven mineralized zones in Sakoli basin in Bhandara and Nagpur districts of Mehrashtra have also been identied. The tailings of the Kolar gold field in Karnataka have been reckoned as potential source of scheelite. Some deposits are also found in Kangundi area of Chittoor district at Rampachadodavaram in East Godavari district of Andhra Prasesh, Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
Limestone
Limestone is associated with rocks composed of either calcium carbonate, the double carbonate of calcium and magnesium, or mixture of these two constituents. It is used for a large variety of purposes, of the total consumption, 75 per cent is used in cement industry, 16 per cent in iron and steel industry and 4 per cent in the chemical industries. Rest of the limestone is used in paper, sugar, fertilizers, glass, rubber and ferromanganese industries.
Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur, Satna, Betul, Sagar, and Rewa districts), Rajasthan (Jhunjhunu, Banwara, Jodhpur, Sirohi, Bundi, Ajmer, Bikaner, Kota, Tonk, Alwar, Sawai Madhopur, Chittorgarh, Nagaur, Udaipur), Andhra Pradesh (Cuddapah, Kurnool, Guntur, Krishna, Warangal, Telangana (Nalgonda, Adilabad Mehbubnagar, and Karimnagar) Chhattisgarh (Bastar, Bilaspur, Raigarh, Raipur, and Durg districts), Tamil Nadu (Ramnathpuram, Triuvelnedi, Tiruchirappalli, Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai, and anjavur district) and Karnataka (Gulbarga, Bijapur, and Shimoga districts) are the main producers.
Dolomite
Limestone with more than 10 per cent of magnesium is called dolomite; when the percentage rises to 45, it is true dolomite. The economic uses of dolomite are chiefy metallurgic al; as refractories, as blast furnace flux as a source of magnesium salts and in fertilizer and glass industries. Iron and Steel industry is the chief consumer of dolomite accounting for over 90 per cent consumption followed by fertilizer (4%), ferro-alloys and glass (2% each), alloy steel (1%) and others (1%). Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka etc. are the chief producers.
Asbestos
Asbestos has found great commercial value due to its brous structure, its capability to be readily separated into laments of high tensile strength and its great resistance to e. Rajasthan (Udaipur, Dungarpur, Ajmer, Alwar and Pali districts), Andhra Pradesh (Cuddapah district) and Karnataka (Hassan, Mandya, Shimoga, Mysore, and Chikmaglur districts) are the main producers.
Magnesite
Major deposits of magnesite are found in Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan while minor occurrences are in Jammu & Kashmir. Tamil Nadu is the largest producer contributing about three-fourth of the total production of India. Chalk Hill near Salem is the main producer.
Kyanite
Kyanite occurs in metamorphic aluminous rocks and is primarily used in metallurgical, ceramic, refractory, electrical, glass, cement and a number of other industries due to its ability to stand high temperatures. It is also used in making sparking plugs in automobiles. Jharkhand (Singhbhum, Dhanbad, and Ranchi districts), Maharashtra (Bhandara and Nagpur districts) and Karnataka (Chikmaglur, Chitradurga, Mandya, Mysore, Dakshin Kanad and Shimoga districts) are major producers.
Gypsum
Gypsum is mainly used in making ammonia sulphate fertilizer and in cement industry. It is an essential constituent of cement, though its proportion is only 4-5 per cent. It is also used in making plaster of paris, moulds in ceramic industry, nitrogen chalk, partition blocks, sheets, tiles, plastics, etc. It is conveniently applied as surface plaster in agriculture for conserving moisture in the soil and for aiding nitrogen absorption. Above 95% of India’s gypsum comes from Rajasthan where Jodhpur, Nagaur and Bikaner are the chief producing districts. Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Uttrakhand are the other producers.
Marble
It occurs in metamorphic rocks and is used for construction of beautiful buildings. Makrana in Rajasthan is famous for its production.
Granite
Granite is also found in metamorphic rocks and is used as a building material. Large deposits of granite occurs in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Steatite
It is found in association with dolomite limestone and basic igneous rock material. Rajasthan (Bhilwara, Jaipur, Udaipur districts), Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool, Cuddapah, Anantapur, Chittor), Jharkhand (Singhbhum, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad and Ranchi districts), Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur and Jhabua districts), Karnataka (Bellary, Shimoga, Hassan, Bijapur, Tumkur, Mysore and South Kanara districts), Odisha (Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Sundergarh and Cuttack districts), Tamil Nadu (Salem, Coimbatore, North and South Arcot and Tiruchirapalli district), Maharashtra (Ratnagiri, Bhandara, and Chandrapur districts) and West Bengal (Purulia, Darjeeling and Midnapur districts) are the main producing states.
Uranium
Uranium is a nuclear energy mineral deposits of which occur in Singhbhum and Hazaribagh districts of Jharkhand, Gaya district of Bihar, and in the sedimentary rocks in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. But the largest source of uranium comprise the monazite sands, both beach and alluvial. Although monazite sands occur on east and west coasts and in some places in Bihar, the largest concentration of monazite is on the Kerala coast. Some uranium occurs in the copper mines of Udaipur in Rajasthan.
Thorium
This is also a nuclear energy mineral and is mainly found in monazite sands of beaches of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Beryllium oxide is used as a ‘moderator’ in nuclear reactors for atomic power generation. India has sufficient reserves of beryllium to meet her requirement of atomic power generation. Its deposit occur in Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
Ilmenite
Like thorium, ilmenite also occurs in beach sands. Tamil Nadu (Kanniyakumari) and Kerala are the chief producers.
Salt
It is an important mineral which is used in chemical industry. Sodium chloride, known as common salt, is used as a food item. Salt is obtained from sea water, brine springs, wells and salt pans in lakes and from rocks. Rock salt is taken out in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh and in Gujarat. It is less than 1 per cent of the total salt produced in India. Sambhar and Deedwana lakes in Rajasthan produce about 10 per cent of our annual production. Sea brine is the source of salt in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Gujarat coast produces half of our salt.