President calls for environmentally sustaible mining practices

New Delhi, April 5: President Prab Mukherjee on Tuesday said the sustence of mankind depends only on environmentally sustaible mining practices. Presenting the tiol Geoscience Awards 2014 here at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President said availability and use of minerals in any country has been “one of the factors determining self-sufficiency of its economy”.

“These tural resources have to be explored, extracted, refined and processed to use them for tion building. At the same time, we must understand that sustence of mankind depends only on environmentally sustaible mining practices,” he said.

Mukherjee said: “Our effort to use our tural resources should be informed by the dangers of tural and man made disasters.”

The president said he was happy to note that the Geoscientists of the country were working hard to meet these challenges. “The diverse fields work of the awardees are testimony to this inherent spread of the geoscientific developments in the country.”

He said the exploration of mineral resources in the country required a greater thrust with an even greater caution.

“As the search for the near surface deposits have reached a point of saturation, the Geoscientists of the country now face the crucial challenge of finding deep seated and concealed mineral resources.

“There is a need to focus on exploration of the offshore mineral resources which hold enormous potential of supplementing the increasing needs of the society. Similarly, it is also important to find strategic and rare earth elements to support Space and Information Technology Missions of the tion to ensure self-reliance of the tion in these fields. However, all of this needs to be accomplished with the environmental sustaibility concern in mind,” he said. The tiol Geoscience Awards, earlier known as the tiol mineral awards, were instituted by the ministry of mines in 1966 to honour individuals and teams of scientists for their extraordiry achievements and outstanding contributions in fundamental and applied geosciences and mining and allied fields.

Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were union Minister of Steel and Mines rendra Singh Tomar and Minister of State for Steel and Mines Vishnu Deo Sai. (IANS)