NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): In all likelihood, India is set to go for commercial exploration of platinum following very promising discovery of the precious metal along the 150-km belt in Tamil Nadu and adjoining Kerala.

Once the government takes a deeper exploration of 100-200 metres, the researchers expect the find to be even more substantial, which could lead to viable commercial exploration. Till now, the exploration has been carried out only up to 30 metres and it is very promising.

The discovery of platinum is in Namakkal and Mettupalayam belts in Tamil Nadu which don't have dense forests and are good for deep exploration.

There is not much forest in the two belts and miners can go in for exploration in a big way. As of now, India has platinum in some parts but this is excellent find and the quality is equivalent to the best in South Africa's Bushveld region.

More than 80% of the world's platinum is concentrated in South Africa, and Bushveld is the main area of production. The other platinum producer in the world is Russia, which also has a significant quantity of the metal.

The move will also help in development of these areas, some parts of which are very backward. The discovery in the Mettupalayam region suggests there could be prospects of some platinum reserves in Kerala too. One portion in Mettupalayam side may go to Kerala and there may be a possibility (of some finds there) but that exploration has not yet been done.

The Geological Survey of India and Tamil Nadu Minerals are jointly exploring commercial viability of mining the platinum group of minerals present in Mettupalayalam and Namakkal area.

Russia South Africa India Precious metal