GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Nepal lies in the central part of 2500km long Himalayan belt. Almost 83% of Nepalese territory is mountainous. It is an underdeveloped country with vast natural resources like Water, Minerals, Forest, varieties of Agricultural products and Medical herbs. For the economical development of the country exploitation and proper use of such valuable resources especially mineral resources is very important. The mountainous region and the geological environment there in is suitable for metallic, nonmetallic/ industrial and fuel mineral deposits as well as huge amount of construction materials and dimension/ decorative stones. Continues efforts are extremely necessary to find out more mineral deposits, timely exploitation of these known resources and make multiple uses of these mineral commodities for the benefit of the people.

Minerals are the nonrenewable natural resources. Sustainable development of such resources helps to strengthen the economy of the country. Mineral exploration activities were in peak during 1974 - 1980 when DMG and UN funded Mineral Exploration Development Project was in action. All these investigation/ exploration activities in the past were able to delineate quite a few prospective areas and also able to identify some economic and sub-economic mineral deposits in different parts of the country. Government of Nepal should give high priority to explore, evaluate and sustainable development of industrial minerals, high price metals, base metals, fuel minerals, precious and semi precious stones. It should also invite potential investors/ companies (national and International) to invest in mineral and mining sector and establish mineral based industries by giving some incentive in the beginning. Now many private investors are showing their interest and taken 451 exploration licenses for 21 minerals and 80 mining license for 12 mineral commodities (except river gravel and sand mines) from DMG. Few cement, marble and DBM/ talc, industries have been established but none of them are in regular production due to some disturbances. Only some limestone for cement, and very few coal, semi-precious stones, lead and zinc, talc, clay mines are in operation. Exploration of oil and natural gas by foreign companies, first by Shell Netherlands (now left) and later by Texana Resources Co. (USA) and CAIRN Energy PLC (UK) have taken some areas on lease but the work progress is not satisfactory. Mineral resources play vital role in industrial development and over all increase in the national GDP. Present contribution to national GDP from minerals and mine is about 0.5% and on the whole from Minerals mines and mineral based industries sector is just around 2.4 % which is not encouraging but could go above 10% or more if we can utilize existing mineral resources. Once mining activities start natural environment will be slightly damaged but it should be minimize by immediate rehabilitation of the mined area.