BHOPAL (Commodity Online): Madhya Pradesh government has accorded a prospecting licence for diamond mining to an exploration and production subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL).

A press release said following the licence the subsidiary will be able to prospect over an area of 1800 square kilometers spread over the Rewa, Sidhi and Satna districts in Madhya Pradesh.

Reliance plans to pump in about Rs 1,000 crore in the prospecting work and it is the second private sector company to venture into diamond prospecting in Madhya Pradesh after Australian mining major Rio Tinto.

Recently, Madhya Pradesh government granted prospecting licence to RIL in Bhopal. Besides diamond, the prospecting licence includes permission for other minerals like gold, copper, lead, zinc and silver.

The licences have been issued in two parts, one for an area of 1084 square kilometers and another for an area of 735 square kilometers in the 3 districts.