India strikes gold and how! The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has discovered over 3,500 tonnes gold deposits in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh.

The gold deposits have been found in Son Pahadi and Hardi areas. The mining officials said the gold deposit is worth Rs 12 crore and is more than twice India’s current household stocks of the yellow metal.

The auctioning of these blocks through e-tendering will be started soon. “The deposits in Son Pahadi is estimated to be around 2943.26 tonnes, while that in Hardi block is 646.16 tonnes. Other minerals have also been found in the area,” KK Rai, the district mining officer told reporters.

Rai informed that the work on finding gold reserves in Sonbhadra was started almost two decades back in 1992-93. As per the World Gold Council, India currently has 626 tonnes of gold reserves.

Sonbhadra is the second largest district of Uttar Pradesh. Sonbhadra is the only district in India which borders four states namely Madhya Pradesh in west, Chhattishgarh in south, Jharkhand in south east and Bihar in the northeast.

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