PESHAWAR: The economy of the tribal region can be strengthened with the help of its rich mineral wealth.
“Efforts have been intensified to mine the rich FATA natural resources such as copper, marble, manganese and gypsum in a professional way, which will usher an era of progress and development in the tribal region and the country,” FATA Development Authority (FDA) Minerals Manager Muhammad Humayun Khan said.
He said vast swathes of the tribal region contained unprecedented mineral wealth. “Bajaur tribal belt has marble, manganese, chromite and emerald. Mohmand region is rich in marble, chromite, silica sand, dolomite, manganese, quartz, feldspar and emeralds,” he said.
Similarly, he said, Khyber tribal region had marble, barite, graphite, soapstone, limestone, oil, gas and bastnasite (rare earth mineral). “The Orakzai region has coal, iron ore and oil and gas,” he said.
“Almost 85% of FATA region has been geologically explored to identify the existence and potential of the natural resources,” he said.
The restive Kurram belt has soapstone, coal, marble, magnesite, iron ore, lead, oil and gas. North Waziristan has huge resources of copper, gold, nickel, manganese, chromite, magnesite, granite (dimension stone) and oil and gas.
According to FATA Research Center, the authorities have so far identified 19 different minerals in tribal areas. These include copper, manganese, chromite, iron ore, lead, barite, soapstone, coal, gypsum, limestone, marble, dolomite, feldspar, quartz, silica san, bentonite, marl, emerald and graphite.
In addition, the South Waziristan tribal region is rich in copper, gold, chromite, marble, granite, oil and gas, Humayun remarked.
Mazhar Ali Khan, an expert on mineral affairs, said if work to exploit FATA mineral resources continued at the same pace, then it would have a positive impact on the lives of tribal people.
“For example, the marble production in FATA stands at 3,000 tonnes daily,” he said. In addition, he said that 10,000 people were involved in the mineral activities in the FATA region.
Humayun said that frontier regions (FRs) of Kohat, Peshawar, Tank and DI Khan had huge deposits of coal, limestone, oil and gas, bentonite, limestone, gypsum, marl and cement grade limestone.
Sharing minute details, Humayun said that the overall reserves of mineral in FATA included 35.0 million tonnes of copper. “There is 2 million tonnes of manganese. Out of the total, 0.15 million tonnes is in North Waziristan and 0.120 million tonnes in Bajaur Agency. There is approximately, 137 million tonnes of gypsum, 11.0 million tonnes of dolomite. There are huge deposits of limestone, soapstone and silica,” he said.
He said the minerals extracted from FATA included marble, coal, soap stone, chromite, quartz, lime stone, barite, iron ore, manganese, serpentine, graphite and magnesite.
He went on to say that Bajaur had 5,850 million tonnes of marble reserves, Mohmand 845 million of tonnes and Khyber tribal region had 345 million tonnes of marble. “Over 7,000 million tonnes of different shades, including good grade of marble, deposits of different colours and textures are available in Bajuar, Mohmand and Khyber areas,” he said.
Presently, he said 1.2 million tonnes of marble was mined through primitive methods, causing more than 75% wastage.
“Efforts are being taken to minimize this wastage, increase the life of the marble deposits and make the product value added. However, mechanised block cutting technology is the need of the hour,” he said.
Keeping in view these state of affairs, he said FATA Development Authority was upgrading two marble mines at a cost of Rs 117 million in Mohmand and Bajaur regions in collaboration with Pakistan Stone Development Company (PSDC).
Published in Daily Times, October 18th 2017.