Government owned, Nepal Metal Company, based in Dhading, has remained closed for the past 12 years. The company has its mining asite stretched along the foot of Mt Ganesh between Dhading’s Rubi Valley and Rasuwas’s Amachhodingmo Rural Municipality. The company has a building constructed some 25 years ago, which has developed cracks in the aftermath of the devastating 2015 earthquakes. Fifty-two years ago, an engineer from the Indian Birla Company had discovered that the mountain contained huge deposits of zinc and lead. He did so by testing the water flowing down from Mt Ganesh. Following the discovery, Nepali Army had constructed a 105km road to Somdang in the mining site from Nuwakot’s Trisuli. The road construction had started in 1987 and concluded after two years. “The company was closed in the fiscal 2005/06 citing the difficulty to carry out excavation work amidst the armed conflict, but it hasn’t resumed work all these years,” said the company’s former chair Netraraj Poudel.  As per a study, so far the sites containing around 300,000 tonnes of ores in the vicinity of the mountain have been identified.  Photo and Story by Keshav Adhikari for The Himalayan Times #Nepal #Dhading #mine # NepalMetalCompany #GaneshHimal #zincmine https://www.instagram.com/p/CC0rsSWlJzI/?igshid=l2kyuewyat5t