ELECTION OF A MEMBER........SURVEY OF INDIA 31
Mr. President (The Honourable Sir Abdur Rahim): Amendment moved :
“That in the motion for the words ‘one representative’ the words ‘three representatives’ be substituted.”
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Sir, the motion and the amendments raise two questions. Last time when I moved the motion, my Honourable friend, Mr. Neogy, asked for some information to be given to the House with regard to the constitution of the Utilisation Branch of the Geological Survey of India. As the House will remember, on the very next day the Honourable Mr. Neogy had tabled a question with regard to the very same question. In the course of my reply, I gave some information with regard to the Utilisation Branch and I do not know whether my Honourable friend and the rest of the Members of this House desire any more information with regard to this Branch. But I see that there is probably some information which it was not possible for me to give to the house by reason of the fact that it could not be put either as answer to the main question or because of the peculiar nature of the supplementary questions that were asked on that day. I propose to give to the House some information now which I was not able to convey to it the other day.
The first thing that I wish to refer from the point of view of information is the duties of the Utilisation Branch which, I think, I did not mention that day. I should like to inform the House that according to the constitution of the Utilisation Branch, it will have three main duties; firstly, to carry out the necessary field work for proving mineral deposits; secondly to initiate, where necessary, preliminary mining operations ; and, thirdly, conduct experimental work as may be necessary to solve problems in ore dressing and smelting and other problems of production that may be capable of solution by the utilisation of India’s minerals. Those are the duties of the Utilisation Branch.
Then, with regard to the programme of work of the Utilisation Branch. I would like to inform the House that at present it falls under six heads: (1) re-opening of the lead and zinc mines of Zawar in Udaipur State in Mewar;
(2) development of Rajputana mica mines ; (3) working of sulphur deposits in Baluchistan; (4) operations on wolfram in Bengal and the Central Provinces ; (5) examination of