Efficient management of the runoff water leaving the RAM premises was getting difficult as the average rainfall in the last three years was above 500mm. This, coupled with average fresh water intake of around 9,000 m3 per day into the system, aggravated the problem. The challenge was to address these two issues at the same time; reduce the fresh water intake from Banas river and utilise the excess water present at the RAM tailing dam. RAM is a zero-discharge unit and is presently having an excess water inventory of 6 lac m3 in the tailing dam.

Since the tailing storage facility is a high risk practice, we decided to use the partial quantity of water stored in the tailing dam in the mill, instead of the fresh water. An 8” reclaimed water discharge pipeline was laid and the water from the tailing dam was diverted back to the mill on a daily basis. Throughout this process, the quality of the water was tested by the RAM lab to maintain optimum standards.