India takes privilege of being an important place in mica industry of the world. The three important mica producing belts namely the Bihar Mica Belt, the Nellore Mica Belt and the Rajasthan Mica Belt are chief producers of mica of very good quality. Due to few problems, there is gradual decline in the production of mica from these three belts and on accounts of this many exponents have started believing that the mica industry may extinct. Further in recent past, many efforts have been made by developed countries to find substitute of mica for the purposes of replacing mica and its products but those substitutes are not perfect substitute of mica and are not very much cost effective. In recent times, there is cumulative effort on the part of several agencies to develop more scientific and technical norms for the prospecting of mica and in the last few years, the combined activities of geological, geophysical, remote sensing and geochemical methods have helped a lot in this direction. However it is doubted whether these concerted efforts will be fruitful or not on account of uncertain future and poor economic health of mica mines. The central agencies such as Geological Survey of India, the Mineral Exploration Corporation, the Indian Bureau of Mines and the Mine and Mineral Trades Corporation should take up some pilot areas and undertake exhaustive prospecting and exploration of mica. This paper will highlight problems prevailing in mica mining in India and its remedial measures for sustainable mica mining. In fact there are bright prospects for this industry even today. Only a realistic, proper and dynamic policy is required for this.
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