Gold is found in which district of Bihar?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, Jamui District. Every tonne of gold-bearing rock that India's National Mineral Inventory attributes to Bihar lies in the Sono area of Jamui district, in the hilly country along the Bihar–Jharkhand border. The inventory figures, compiled under the UNFC system as on 1 April 2015, are worth learning exactly, because they are the most misquoted numbers in Bihar's geography. India's primary gold resources stand at 501.83 million tonnes of ORE containing 654.74 tonnes of gold METAL. Bihar accounts for 222.885 million tonnes of that ore — about 44% of the national figure, which is why the state is described as sitting on a large share of India's gold. But the contained metal in Bihar's share is only 37.6 tonnes, roughly 5.7% of India's gold. The arithmetic explains the gap: Bihar's ore averages about 0.17 grams of gold per tonne against about 1.30 g/t for the Indian inventory as a whole and around 4.8 g/t in the working reserve at Hutti in Karnataka. A very large volume of very poor rock is not a gold mine. Nor is any of it proved: Bihar's holding is split between UNFC code 333 (Inferred), 128.885 million tonnes of ore with 21.6 tonnes of metal, and code 334 (Reconnaissance), 94 million tonnes with 16 tonnes — the two lowest confidence classes, with no reserve at all. The Bihar government approved GSI-assisted exploration of the Jamui block in May 2022, but as of the September-2025 exam the state had no producing gold mine; India's primary gold mining remains essentially confined to Karnataka.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Gaya is the best-known name on the list and therefore the most tempting, but its fame is Bodh Gaya, the Vishnupad temple and the Phalgu, not metals. Its mineral associations are mica on the old Bihar mica belt and building stone. No gold-ore resource is recorded for Gaya in the National Mineral Inventory, which places the whole of Bihar's gold in Jamui.  (c) Nalanda is a Gangetic-plain district, alluvium over most of its area apart from the low Rajgir hills, and it is examined for the mahavihara, Rajgir and its hot springs rather than for minerals. Deep young alluvium is the wrong setting entirely for a primary gold deposit, which needs Precambrian crystalline rock at or near the surface.  (d) Bhagalpur's reputation is tussar and Bhagalpuri silk, the Vikramshila mahavihara ruins and the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary on the Ganga. It is a plains district on the river. The inventory records no gold-ore resource there; all of Bihar's gold-bearing rock is attributed to the Sono area of Jamui.

Concept: Gold questions punish anyone who does not separate three quantities. ORE is the tonnage of rock that carries gold. GRADE is how much metal a tonne of that rock holds, expressed in grams per tonne. CONTAINED METAL is ore multiplied by grade, and it is the only figure that means anything commercially. India's whole inventory of 501.83 million tonnes of gold ore yields just 654.74 tonnes of metal, an average of about 1.3 g/t; a working mine such as Hutti in Raichur district carries about 31.02 million tonnes of ore holding 150.4 tonnes of gold, close to 4.8 g/t. Bihar's Sono deposit, at roughly 0.17 g/t, is an order of magnitude poorer than the national average, which is why 44% of India's gold ORE translates into under 6% of India's gold METAL. On top of grade sits confidence. The United Nations Framework Classification, which the National Mineral Inventory uses, ranks a deposit by how well it has been proved — 331 measured, 332 indicated, 333 inferred, 334 reconnaissance — and only the economically demonstrated part is called a Reserve. Bihar's gold is entirely 333 and 334, meaning it has been inferred from scattered drilling and regional survey rather than blocked out. Karnataka, by contrast, has been mining continuously: Kolar Gold Fields under Bharat Gold Mines closed in 2001, but Hutti Gold Mines Limited still works the Hutti–Muski greenstone belt from underground and open-cast mines in Raichur district and a unit at Chitradurga.

State PCS 2025 Q119 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q119 — Geography PYQ with Answer