Once considered home to one of the largest gold deposits in India, the Kolar mines were nationalised in 1956 and 1972, before operations were handed to BGML. Mounting losses and falling revenues however led to BGML’s closure in 2001. In June of this year, India’s Supreme Court approved the government’s plan to issue a global tender for BGML’s assets, so that the Kolar gold mines could be restated.
India currently has only three producing gold mines, the Hutti, Uti and Hirabuddini mines, and domestic production has stagnated in recent years at around 2.8 tonnes annually. This has led industry players to call for gold production to be brought back into focus to help reduce the country’s increasing gold imports bill. It is also hoping that a rise in production will help the government in containing the current account deficit to some extent.
