Bhubaneswar :Aiming to create awareness and develop a comprehensive guidance manual to support safe and responsible management of tailings across the Indian mining industry, Sustainable Mining Initiative (SMI), a division of the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI)hold its 29th meeting of its governing council at hotel Mayfair Lagoon here on Wednesday.
The meeting highlighted the action taken report on its previous minutes and discussed the draft guidance manual for tailings management facilities for the Indian mining industry. The report was prepared under the guidance of Pankaj Satija, Executive In-charge, Tata Steel in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur. Professor BS Sastry of IIT Kharagpur made a detailed presentation on the salient points of the manual.
“Tailing production is outcome of mineral processing in a mine and will remain so in future as mining companies are going for low grade ore mining in view of depleting high grade reserves. If you don’t have sufficient area for mining and storage of tailings then there will be issues related with environment, safety, water pollution and the biodiversity. Therefore, it’s important that the optimal size of mining should be there so that the lessee will have enough space for mining and putting the beneficiation plant and enough space for holding the tailings and water recycling facilities,” said Pankaj Satija while attending the Governing Council Meeting.
Industry leaders from top mining, metal and mineralcompanies attended the meeting and expressed their concerns on the criticality of tailings management and proper monitoring of tailing dams. The leaders opined that recent incidents of tailings dam failures since the year 2014 serve as reminders that there is more to be done for management of tailing facilities.
The event was followed by the Investment Roundtable organised by the Government of Western Australia in collaboration with FIMI. Ms Nashid Chowdhury, Investment and Trade Commissioner, India-Gulf region hosted the roundtable and discussions were held on the investment opportunities in Australia and India at the do.
Notably, FIMI is going to organise a two-day Sustainable Mining Summit from 13th to 14thJune, 2024 at hotel Mayfair Convention to deliberate on various mining issues and prepare a road-map for sustainable mining in India. Various stakeholders, including government agencies, regulators, industry stalwarts, practicing managers, academicians and strategists are expected to come together and discuss important issues concerning the Indian mining industry.