In fact, White Tiger of Australia has teamed up with Binani Industries and Rajasthan State Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (RSMDCL) to float a joint company for exploring the metallic industrial minerals like lead, copper, zinc and tungsten.

Rajasthan produces no less than 67 kinds of major and minor minerals. The state has precious and semi-precious stones such as emeralds, acquamarine,and garnet as well.

The state government has also received 31 applications for carrying out aerial surveys of the mineral wealth from six MNCs. The total area to be covered by the MNCs is put at 43,443.29 sq km. Sanction letters have been issued by the government to some of the MNCs.

Rajasthan has India's largest known deposit of tungsten ore -- wolframite -- at Degana in the Nagaur district. The mine is being operated by the public sector Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL). HZL produced 5.45 tonnes of tungsten ore during 1993-94. Tungsten ore has also been located at Balda in Sorohi district and Sevriya in the Sorihi district. There are indications about the presence of iron ore and manganese ore in some parts of the state.

Rajasthan is a leading producer of lead, zinc and copper ores. It has about 400 million tonnes of identified resource of lead and zinc and 165 million tonnes of copper. During 1996-97, the state produced 2.11 million tonnes of lead-zinc and 1.23 million tonnes of copper ore. These mines are in the possession of HZL and HCL.

Among the non-metallic minerals are limestone, gypsum, rock phosphate, soapstone, wollastonite, silica sand, quartz, felspar and calcite. The state has about 2500 million tonnes of cement grade limestone reserves. Already as many as 13 large cement plants are in operation in the state.

Rajasthan has about 500 million tonnes of steel-grade limestone in the Jaisalmer district, bordering Pakistan. Last year the total production of steel-grade limestone was about 10 lakh tonnes. Rajasthan meets about 90 per cent country's requirement of gypsum with a total reserves of 1071 million tonnes. About 952 million tonnes of gypsum are in the category of deet-seated and the mining of the same may be quite expensive.