Deccan Gold to invest $538 million

India's first listed gold exploration company Deccan Gold Mines Ltd. plans to invest $538 million in next couple of years in the exploration and mining activity in the four identified areas.

Sandeep Lakhwara, director of the company said that they will explore North Hutti and South Hutti fields in Karnataka, Ramgiri in Andhra Pradesh and Mangalore initially for gold. The exploration activity has already begun and  feasibility reports will be prepared after the basic work is over, he added.

The company was named Deccan Gold Mines Ltd. after recently taking over a BSE listed company Wimper Trading Ltd. The company had to opt for this route because of the mandatory three-year track record requirement needed to come out with an IPO.

Charles Devenish, chairman, Australian Indian Resources Pty. Ltd, the parent company of Rama Goldmines (Mauritius Ltd.) which is the holding company of Deccan Gold Mines, said, "A major attraction of India to us is the close geological relationship between Western Australia and Peninsular India.

The two land masses were adjacent to each other more than 200 million years ago within the ancient Super continent geologists call Gondwana Land."

This Gondwana origin is evident in the closely comparable and richly mineralised ancient rock formations of Western Australian Gold Fields and India's gold producing states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The prospects of mining in India are substantial. The Indian land mass has been known to be rich in a variety of minerals and metals. Geological conditions are just ideal to host a variety of metalliferous mineral deposits.

Ancient Indians were the first to discover, mine and produce a variety of metals such as gold, copper, zinc, lead, tin, antimony and iron. India is largely under explored  for these metals using modern technology compared to Australia, Canada, Africa, South America and even China.

"We plan to bring into India the state of the art methods and technology used to discover and develop new gold and base metal mines," Lakhwara said.

Whilst India has the potential to host a number of gold mines, the Indian potential has remained untapped mainly due to the earlier government monopoly . It is only in the last few years that the government reversed the earlier policy and invited private investment into this sector.

The result is that there are some very big name multinationals now undertaking exploration activities in India. The giant Kolar goldfields was a casualty of the earlier government policy and was closed down by the government without exploring it's full potential.

It produced 800 tonnes of gold during it's 100 years long recorded history and is closely comparable to the Golden Mile in Western Australia which has produced nearly 1200 tonnes of gold.

The only major gold mine in India today is the world class Hutti Gold Mines which has a resource of 90 tonnes of gold but has produced about 50 tonnes to date and has an annual production of about 2.5 tonnes of gold.