IIT Kharagpur, NMDC join hands for drone-based mineral exploration

NEW DELHI: The National Mineral Development Corporation has signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur for drone-based mineral exploration. Under the agreement, NMDC and IIT Kharagpur would develop spectral products, methods and algorithms for exploration using the Drone (UAV) for mining.

The collaboration between NMDC and IIT Kharagpur will further lead to the development of software spectral tools for mineral excavation and capacity building programmes on mining technology.

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Sumit Deb, Chairman and Managing Director, NMDC said, “NMDC would be the first Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) in India to conduct Drone-based Geophysical Surveys and Hyperspectral Studies for Mineral Exploration in the country. NMDC’s tie up with IIT-Kharagpur will open a new chapter and set a benchmark in the field of mineral exploration for the nation.”

NMDC has been exploring minerals for six decades for a wide range of minerals such as Copper, Rock phosphate, Limestone, magnesite, Diamond, Tungsten and Beach sands amongst others.

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NMDC is conducting exploration for various minerals in the State of Madhya Pradesh and also in the Beloda-Belmundi block in Chhattisgarh for Diamonds. NMDC is also the first CPSE to use Space Geophysics in Central Indian Diamond Province and the first to use online monitoring of exploration of data on the BHUVAN platform. NMDC is increasingly relying on technological innovation and digitalization of its database related to exploration and mining.

The agreement for ‘Drone-Based Mineral Exploration’ was signed on a virtual platform which was attended by Deb; Amitava Mukherjee, Director (Finance); Somnath Nandi, Director (Technical); D K.Mohanty, Director (Production) from NMDC and professors from IIT Kharagpur.