By IANS,
New Delhi: India has an estimated 1.47 lakh tonnes of uranium resources, most of it in Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, Rajya Sabha was informed Monday.
“The uranium resource in the country is currently estimated to be 1,47,898 tonnes,” Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.
Andhra Pradesh has about 66,205 tonnes of uranium ore, followed by Jharkhand at 48,074 tonnes and Meghalaya at 17,252 tonnes.
Chavan informed that an action plan has been drawn to maximize the production of uranium from the operating mines of Jharkhand. Further, a new mill and a processing plant is expected to be commissioned towards the end of the eleventh five year plan (2007-2012) period at Tummalapalle of Andhra Pradesh.
“A number of projects, like Gogi in Karnataka, KPM in Meghalaya and Lambapur in Andhra Pradesh are being taken up during the XIth plan period. The production from these projects are expected in the 12th plan period,” he said.
Chavan said that nine reactors with a capacity of 2,620 megawatt, fuelled by domestic natural uranium, were operating at only 70 percent plant load factor “due to non-availability of uranium in the required quantity”.