Hyderabad to have India’s second gold refinery

Two proposals from private firms are being considered by Telangana state officials

Hyderabad will soon have a gold refinery, south India’s first and India’s second such facility to process the unrefined gold to be imported from Africa, Telangana government officials said.

The state government has received a proposal for setting up the gold refinery from a private company that specialises in refining of gold and silver.

A second proposal for a similar project was also submitted by another unnamed company and both of them were being considered.

If the proposal gets the nod from the Board of Approvals of the central government, it will be built at Kongar Kalan village near Ibrahimpatnam on the outskirts of Hyderabad on 12 hectares of land belonging to the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation. Officials expect that the refinery to boost the gems and jewellery manufacturing sector in the state as the government was also considering proposals to set up ten jewellery processing units.

State Principal Secretary, Industries, Jayesh Ranjan said that these units will be set up by different companies and will give a boost to the gems and jewellery exports from the present Rs60 billion (Dh3.3 billion) a year.

India’s only gold refinery at present was built at Nadaun in Himachal Pradesh.

The proposals have come at a time when the recent massive bank scam resulted in the shutting down of Gitanjali Gems park and other units of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in Hyderabad. This resulted in the loss of employment for nearly 1,000 people. Officials hope that these displaced workers will be rehabilitated in the new units.

First phase

Without identifying the names of the companies which have proposed setting up gold refineries officials said that one of them had an annual turnover of Rs250 billion and another Rs330 billion.

In the first phase one company proposes to set up a refinery with a capacity to process 30 tonnes of gold and 100 tonnes of silver with an investment of Rs5.5 billion and in the second phase it will invest another Rs7.5 billion to increase the processing capacity to 50 tonnes of gold and 150 tonnes of silver per year.

The representatives of one of the companies visited the Kongara Kalan village to see the proposed site for the refinery which will import the unrefined gold from Africa by air and it will be transported from the Shamshabad International Airport to the refinery.

Locally refined gold will then be supplied to the jewellery processing units which presently rely on imports of refined gold.

The proposed jewellery processing units will come up in a special economic zone on an area of 10 hectares and the proposal will be submitted to the Board of Approval before its meeting by the end of May or early June, officials said.