Jammu: Recently, a large amount of Lithium reserves were found in the Jammu & Kashmir state of India. The Indian government has announced that bidding will be done for the newly discovered Lithium reserves.
Many automobile manufacturers come ahead to participate in the bid for the recently found Lithium reserves in Jammu and Kashmir. Among those automakers, the top companies like Mitsubishi, Tesla, and Ola Electric are in line. About 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium reserves were found in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district recently.
With this discovery of such a large amount of Lithium, India has become the seventh-largest Lithium reserve country in the world. Lithium is a non-ferrous metal. It is a soft, silvery-white, and lustrous alkali metal. This metal is used in battery manufacturing for different electronic products like mobiles, laptops, and pacemakers.
Lithium is also used in the glass and ceramics industry. Lithium has become a precious metal nowadays due to its growing use in the production of Lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
The Indian Minister of Coal, Mr. Pralhad Joshi had announced in March 2023 that, “lithium had been discovered in India’s northern federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The exploitation of lithium will depend upon a successful auction of the mineral block”.
He further said that the bid would be regulated by the authorities of Jammu & Kashmir. The Union mines secretary, Vivek Bharadwaj told that the central government will complete the bid for the 5.9 million tonnes of Lithium reserves found in the Reasi district of the northern union territory of Jammu & Kashmir, by the month of December this year.
He told this during the launch of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) report on ‘New-Age Energy Minerals’ on Tuesday. As per Mr. Vivek’s statement, “Auction will be over by the end of this year, we have already recommended a transaction advisor to the J&K government for the bid of lithium reserves.”
It is expected that the center would invite bids for the recently discovered metal in Jammu, by the month of June this year.
