Thorium Reserves in Country

India has reserves of thorium in sufficient quantity as compared to other parts of world. The Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has so far established 11.93 million tonnes of in situ resources Monazite (Thorium bearing mineral) in the country, which contains about 1.07 million tonnes of thorium. The state-wise resources of in situ monazite established by AMD as of September 2014 are as follows: State Monazite (Million tonnes) Odisha 2.41 Andhra Pradesh 3.72 Tamil Nadu 2.46 Kerala 1.90 West Bengal 1.22 Jharkhand 0.22 Total 11.93              Both Uranium and Thorium have got distinctive characteristics governing their utilisation in nuclear reactors. Unlike uranium, thorium alone cannot be directly used as nuclear fuel in a reactor.  Utilisation of Thorium with either uranium or plutonium, without going through the second stage of Fast Breeder Reactors, to build sufficient inventory of plutonium first, will be counter-productive by limiting thorium utilisation to a very small fraction of the total available resources in the country. Utilisation of Thorium in the third stage makes it available as a sustainable energy resource for centuries. With this mode of utilisation, Thorium offers not only a sustainable energy resource, but also excellent fuel performance characteristic in a reactor, better than Uranium with respect to lower inventory of long lived nuclear waste.                         The three stage Indian nuclear programme was formulated at the inception of the DAE and has as its main stay objective of utilisation of large resources of Thorium in a sustainable manner. As explained above, Thorium cannot be used for overcoming power crisis in the short term.     The resources of xenotime, another rare-earth bearing mineral, are negligible in India.  AMD has established about 2000 tonnes of xenotime-bearing heavy mineral concentrate containing 2% xenotime in the riverine heavy mineral placer deposits of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.                         Monazite is a mineral mainly containing rare earths and thorium-a prescribed substance to be handled by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). Accordingly, Indian Rare Earths Ltd. (IREL) wholly owned by the Govt. of India, under the administrative control of the Dept. of Atomic Energy (DAE) utilises monazite mainly for production of rare earth compounds, and thorium, as needed in the Department of Atomic Energy.  Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constitute unit of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has estimated the presence of 11.93 million tonnes of monazite resources in the beach sand mineral placer deposits along the coastal tracts of India. Monazite in general, contains about 55 – 60% total Rare Earth Oxide