Panna Diamond Belt, Madhya Pradesh A

Critical Reveiw

Introduction:
The Panna Diamond Belt (PDB) occupying the
northern margin of the Vindhyan Basin in Panna
district,

Madhya

Pradesh

hosts

the

primary,

secondary and tertiary sources of diamond. It

comprises the basement Bundelkhand granitoids to
the north overlain by Vindhyan Supergroup of rocks
(Mid to Upper Proterozoic) to the south. The
diamond mining activity is confined mainly to the
Baghain plateau and to a lesser extent to the
Gahadra plateau. The two kimberlite pipes known
in PDB are Majhgawan and Hinota pipes (~1100
Ma), emplaced in Baghain Sandstone lying to the
west of PDB. The basal conglomerate interbeds of
Jhiri Shale (Upper Rewa) and Itwan Sandstone
(Lower Rewa) have been extensively mined for
diamond in the past. The alluvial and colluvial
(Quaternary and Recent) placer diamond workings,
Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

both ancient and present, spread over the Baghain

plateau mainly between Panna town in the west
and Paharikhera in the east. Exploration indicated
significantly

higher

incidence

(~30

cpht)

of

diamond with high percentage of gem quality

diamonds.

Diamond

Mining

in

India:

Panna

Diamonds Mines 2
Diamonds bearing areas in Panna, as mentioned in Part 1
of this series, is located in Madhya Pradesh, a State in the
central part of India, covering about 4000 sq.km. The
potential Panna diamond province of about 20 km wide
and about 100 km long, is spread over in north-easterly
direction parallel to the Ken River. The main diamond belt
is

6-10

km

wide

kimberlite/lamproite

and

80km

source

in

length,

rocks,

where

secondary

conglomerates, and Quarternary to Recent placers are

found around Panna town.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

The Majhgawan and Hinota pipes are the main primary

source rocks for diamonds, though there are several
localities in and around Panna where diamonds are
recovered, both from conglomerates and from recent
placer depositions of gravel beds.
History has it that in the year 1827, Captain Franklin first
reported the Majhgawan pipe as diamond bearing followed
by Sinor who identified the kimberlite pipe rock of
Majhgawan in 1930 and furnished petrographic details.
Post Indian independence, The Geological Survey of
Indias (GSI) investigation established the mineralogical
characters, dimensions of the pipe and its diamondbearing potential. Panna Diamond Mining Syndicate, a
private company took up mining for a short stint till 1959.
Later,

in

1966

the

National

Mineral

Development

Corporation (NMDC) a Government of India Enterprise

undertook mining activity. It is estimated that more than 1
million carats of diamond have been produced till today
from this mine.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

Majhgawan pipe, located about 20 kms south-west of

Panna town, is a pear shaped body measuring 515m x
330m in size on the surface, capped by yellow and blue
ground beneath 5 to 6m of top soil. At places the upper
yellowish coloured top soil grades into blue ground below
14m from surface. The kimberlite body is found within
horizontal sandstone country rocks with sharp contacts.
The western and southern contacts of the body are highly
fractured and sheared with ramifications of secondary
veins, mainly of calcite and has a cone shaped body with
vertical zones.
Sometime in 1956, GSI carried out bulk sampling tests on
40 tonnes of samples from which an average of 12.79 cpht
(carat per hundred tonnes) was recovered from 9 bulk
samples. Later, NMDC further deepened the pits in 1959
and reestimated an overall average of 9.73cpht. Mining
commenced by NMDC in 1966 and regular production
began in 1968 in the Majhgawan open pit. Two shafts of
up to a depth of 96m and three dirves at an interval of 66m
excavated in 1966. Treatment of 7709 tonnes of the pipe
Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

rock

yielded

grade

of

8.45cpht.

From

certain

prospective and potential area an average 10cpht of

production have been projected. It is found that there is
higher concentration of diamonds in the centre of the pipe
at the yellow tuff and red lapilli area than in the peripheral
contact zone, which is enriched in carbonate veins and
xenoliths of country rocks. On an average, the core portion
of the pipe yielded 13 -14 cpht dropping to 6-7 cpht in the
periphery. The bulk treatment of the samples indicated a
slight fall in overall yield at depth compared to the samples
collected from the surface.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

The present mine pit is about 80m deep and kimberlite is

now mined exclusively by opencast mechanized mining.
That is, about 10m high benches are developed and
operate from the centre and then move towards the
periphery of the pipe.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

NMDC acquired Heavy Media Separation (HMS) plant of

50 tonnes per hour capacity in 1994. The plant was
equipped with crushing mechanism, HMS and X-ray sorter
units to produce about 100,000 carat per year. The
kimberlite mined is subject to two stages of crushing with
primary and secondary crushers. The fine material of less
than 1 mm is pumped out in a slurry form and the coarser
1-20mm size material is transported through conveyor
belts to the two hoppers of 50 tonnes per hour capacity to
HMS. While the floats of HMS are rejected, the dried
diamond bearing concentrates are dried passed through
magnetic separators. The non-magnetic concentrates are
passed through x-ray sorters and grease tables to recover
the final product diamonds.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

It
is

estimated that about 2-7 lakh tonnes of kimberlite ore is

treated and about 10000 to 80000 carat of diamond are
being produced from the Majhgawan mine annually. The
overall average grades worked out to around 10 carats per
every hundred tonnes of ore. The diamonds of Mahjgawan
pipes are mostly transparent, free from flaws, have good
crystal faces and occur in combination of right-faced
crystals

(octahedron)

and

twelve-faced

crystals

(dodecahedron) forming sharp edges. Mostly Twinned

crystals and flat crystals found here and the diamonds
from this area are considered to be very high quality. On
an average, the rough uncut diamonds of Majhgawan are
Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

priced at US$200 per carat, the highest cost in the world

during that time.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

It is computed that nearly 1/3 of the diamonds recovered

from Majhgawan pipe are of gem variety. The general size
of diamonds are 0.22 -1.78 carats with an average of 0.5
carat. The largest gem recovered from this pipe till now
weighs 34.37 carat. Another 30.33 carat diamond of gem
quality is also reported to have been recovered. The main
productive zone measured 320x280m covering an area of

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

about 6.5 hectare.

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

The Hinota kimberlite pipe, discovered by the GSI, occurs

about 3 km North-West of Majhgawan. It is an almost
circular shaped body measuring 200x180m at the surface
and elongated in northwest and southeast directions. The
body is capped by 2.5m soil with detritus material. Below
that there is 25m thick earthy yellow and greenish clayey
horizon. Typical blue ground is encountered upto a depth
of about 70m grading onto massive hard compact
kimberlite. Here, the rock is mainly micaceous kimberlite
grading into that of kimberlite breccia at depth,
mineralogically similar to that of Majhgawan. Drilling
investigation carried out established that the kimberlite
body is more than 160m deep. A shaft sunk to the depth of
18.5m has exposed dark grey clayey horizon with
concretions upto 2m, highly weathered kimberlite body
grading to massive rock.
Besides these 2 main pipes, a number of diamond bearing
locations and ultramafic bodies similar to that of kimberlite
are found around Panna town. The Madhya Pradesh State
Mining Officer allots plots to locals for digging and
recovering diamonds with certain terms and conditions.
Several diamond bearing localities are found in the vicinity
of the conglomerate and ultramafic bodies. Though the
rock exposures at the surface are scanty, the wide extent
Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

of the potential area reported to have incidence of

diamonds indicates that there is ample scope for
discovering new concealed larger kimberlite bodies.
Many mafic to ultra-mafic rock bodies similar to kimberlites
can be found around this area like Angore, Bariapur,
Donghaha, and other areas.

In 2004, Rio Tinto, a

multinational giant company explored the area around

Panna and discovered a cluster of eight diamondiferous
bodies at Bunder. Rio Tinto taken up detailed exploration
of Bunder Diamond Project and projected a resource of 37
million carat of diamonds at a grade 0.7 carat per tonne.
This deposit is considered to be seven times richer than
Panna Diamond Mine. While Rio Tinto has obtained
prospecting licence from the Indian government, the
company has applied for a mining lease. And having also
earmarked Rs. 2000 crore for the project, this region is
likely to become one of the top ten diamond producing
centres in the world in terms of volume as well as in value.
Finding a solution and restarting mining activities in the
stalled mining projects in India may not completely solve
Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra

the rough diamonds shortage in the Indian industry, but

will it bring some solace to the rough starved cutting
centres sometime in the future?

Submitted By: Shrikant Mishra