Mitigation Plan for Identified Problems Faced by the Marble Industry in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

T he dimension stone industry of Pakistan has potential to impart in uplifting the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and produce new opportunities. Due to their attractive appearance and durability, trend in the use of dimension stones is increasing rapidly. The annual increase in use of dimension stone in Pakistan was 6.45% in 1997 which is estimated to grow up to 7.73% in 2025 with an average annual increase of 6.86% (GDM Stone Industries Handbook, 2000). According to an estimate, the world's annual stone production was over 60 million tones with an increase of 5% per year (Rathore et al., 2003) whereas the granite and marble stone production was increased by 12% in 2014 than its production in 2013. The top five producing countries of dimension stone are China, India, Turkey, Iran, and Italy and contributed about 74% of the world's production (U.S. Geological Survey, 2018). Since 1998 till now, China is leading the dimension stone world by sharing 17.87% of the world's production. Italy's share is 10.63%, Germany 7.55% and India 5.75% (Figure 1). Pakistan shares less than 0.50% in the world marble production with an average of 497,317 metric tons per year (Ashmole and Motloung, 2008; GSP Report, 2004), which is not significant and needs to be improved.

The Size Correction and Correlation of Point Load Index With Compressive Strength of Some Dimension Stones of Tectonic Zones, North Pakistan

“…The method provides a convenient way to determine the UCS indirectly using irregular lumps. (Raza et al, 2020) Table 1. The dimension stones of Pakistan (Raza et al, 2020)…”