If you have ever visited the scenic beach at Chavara on Kerala's Kollam coast, you would have probably not taken a serious note of the blackish and shining wet sand stuck on your feet. But ask a geologist and he will tell you that the shining particles are ilmenite, one of the five most sought-after 'strategic minerals' found in this part of Kerala.
Ilmenite is the primary ore of titanium - a lightweight and sturdy metal used in the aerospace, shipping and paint industries and in making artificial joints for humans. State-run companies Indian Rare Earths Ltd and Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd extract the mineral from the sand.
Like ilmenite, there are four other heavy minerals found on the beach sand in parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. These minerals are zircon, rutile, garnet and sillimanite. India has 360 million tonne of ilmenite reserves, or 18 per cent of global deposits, but its production is puny.
This forces user industries such as electronics, electrodes, ceramics, refractory and pharmaceuticals to look for expensive imports.
The private sector was allowed to extract these strategically important minerals only at the turn of the century.
But progress has been limited because of the plethora of clearances that companies have to take before they get a project rolling.
One of the few players in the strategic minerals sector is Trimex Sands, which has a factory in Srikakulam district on Andhra Pradesh coast. "The sector is highly regulated and samples are vetted by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for radioactive deposits," says VGK Murty, CEO of Trimex Sands.
"It took about 10 years for Trimex to start production after the grant of a prospecting license in 2000."
Y Balaji, National Application Manager at Eriez Magnetics India, the local unit of a UK-based company that makes mining equipment, says Tamil Nadu has about 40 per cent of India's beach mineral resources but the state government has banned sand mining.
"India has a long coastline with rich deposits of these minerals, but banning sand mining will not help the economy," says Andrew J. Lewis, Vice president at Eriez Magnetics Europe.
Andhra Pradesh's Minister for Mines and Geology, Galla Aruna Kumari, cheered private sector investors by announcing in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam on November 27 that the state government was coming up with a new mineral policy aimed at giving more mining leases and encouraging more projects to come up.
Meanwhile, industry lobby group Mining Engineers' Association of India has been urging the central government to not call the activity "beach sand mining". It argues that only 10 to 15 per cent of major minerals are extracted from sand and the remaining sand is returned to the mining area. Globally, it is called mineral sand mining.
Special 
