A ginormous gold deposit was discovered in the bed of the Indus River in Pakistan's Punjab during a government commissioned survey in Attock district. The development has come as a huge relief for the cash-strapped economy which has been struggling to pay international debts.
The gold desposits are estimated to be worth Rs 80,000 crore. The State Bank of Pakistan has a gold reserve of Rs 47,284.5 crore.
One year ago, Former Minister for Mines and Minerals, Ibrahim Hasan Murad, revealed the discovery of millions tolas of gold, valued at a staggering more than 600 billion PKR, in the Attock region. Backed by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, this discovery spans a 32-kilometer… pic.twitter.com/HH8pOCo6ui
— Ibrahim Hasan Murad (@ibrahimhmurad) January 15, 2025
The state-owned National Engineering Services Pakistan (NESPAK) and the Mines and Mineral Department of Punjab will carry out the mining project.
Where did the gold come from?
Geologists believe that gold deposits in the Indus River have originated from India's Himalayan region. The gold particles from the Himalayan mountains were carried downstream and got accumulated in the riverbed over time in form of nuggets and place gold. The incessant flow of the river has smoothened the gold deposits and this has made them easy to extract.
The gold deposits are located in Attock, where the Indus and Kabul rivers merge. Previously, gold reserves were found in Beka, Allahder and Kund areas where the Indus flows.
Pakistan had earlier banned extraction of gold without approval from the government. This is not just because of economic loss to the exchequer, but also environmental concerns over excessive excavation of the river bed. The use of mercury to extract gold is said to have already damaged the ecosystem of the Indus, with fishermen complaining about scarcity of fish in the river.
Will Indus gold reserves save Pakistan economy?
If these gold reserves could be extracted responsibly by the government, it could be relief to Pakistan's economy. Besides paying off debt, this could also generate revenue for the country.
However, there are also concerns about rampant corruption in the country, including the highest levels of the Pakistani military. In 2011, Army-backed nuclear scientist Samar Mubarakmand expelled two foreign companies from a mining project to extract gold copper from Reko Diq in Balochistan. Tethyan Copper, led by Canada's Barrick Gold and Chile's Antofagasta, which discovered the gold and copper deposits, was replaced by a local team backed by the Pakistani military.
In 2019, a World Bank arbitration court ordered the Pakistani government to pay $5.8 billion to Tethyan Copper in damages.
