LAHORE: The Punjab government has banned unauthorised excavation of placer gold and other minerals in the area of the Indus River in Attock district for two months while the mines and minerals department is working to put precious deposits’ excavation up for auction.

The Geological Survey of Pakistan has surveyed and studied the area from Ghazi to Attock Khurd under an ADP scheme “Potential Evaluation of Placer Gold on River Indus in District Attock” and reported the presence of massive placer deposits worth billions in the river Indus area within the jurisdiction of Punjab.

People of the area have always been doing placer mining – a practice of excavating and separating heavily eroded minerals like gold from sand or gravel.

The Punjab Mines and Minerals department had been making efforts to completely stop the instances of illegal excavation in river Indus by the people of the area and eventually requested the CM for a complete ban on excavation.

Eventually, the Punjab home department imposed Section 144(6) and banned the “movement of excavators or other equipment for illegal excavation of any mineral, including placer gold, in the area of river Indus in district Attock” for two months.

The home department has written in its order that the mines and minerals department is trying to optimally exploit all mineral resources.

“Placer gold is one such mineral, which has good potential for state exchequer,” it stated and added that there had, however, been a persistent issue of unauthorised mining of placer gold along the Indus river in district Attock in order to prevent loss to the exchequer.

It may be mentioned that the deputy commissioner, Attock, while exercising his powers had imposed Section 144 for seven days each through four orders issued from July 31 to Aug 31.

Earlier, an eight-member committee, constituted to stop the theft of placer gold from the Indus River in Attock, had imposed Section 144 on July 2 and established a joint check post to stop the extraction of precious metals from the river.

The meeting was chaired by Punjab Minister for Mines and Minerals Sardar Sher Ali Gorchani and was attended by Communications Minister Sohaib Ahmed and district administration and police officials.

Sources in the mines and minerals department told Dawn that the department had been making efforts to stop the unauthorised placer mining and registered over 100 FIRs against the accused during the last and current calendar years.

According to documents, the placer gold deposits in the upper reaches of northern areas had been reported reaching the bed of the Indus River in Attock with a high flow of water. When the water in the river recedes in the winter season, people of the area have been traditionally extracting gold particles illegally and eventually, heavy excavators were involved in the unauthorised excavation.

The documents suggest that the Ministry of Defence had also declared Kala Chita Forest as a ‘negative area’ in the River Indus near the boundary of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, prohibiting all mining activities there.

Since the River Indus flows through the common boundary of districts of Attock, Punjab, and Nowshera, KP, several videos are circulating on social media, showing the machinery working in the river, a Punjab mines and minerals department spokesman asserted that the machinery was at the right bank of the river which fell in district Nowshera of KP.

“After completion of necessary formalities and approval of amendments required in PMC Rules, 2002 to conduct the auction of placer gold, seeking environmental approvals from the Punjab Environment Department, the administrative department is fully determined to start the auctions of placer gold deposits by December this year,” a senior officer confided to Dawn.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2024