Rajasthan's Red Sandstone Showing High Demand

Looking at the historic buildings like Red Fort, Rashtrapati Bhawan or Parliament House in New Delhi, one wonders at the beauty which has remained intact even after so many year just like it was at the time they were built. Not many of us know they are all made of Rajasthan's red sandstone.

Sandstone may be defined as a stone made of grains of quartz and other materials of fairly uniform size and often smooth and rounded. These grains are held together by a cementing material which may be siliceous or ferruginous. The toughness of sandstone depends mostly on the nature of this cementing material.

Rajasthan being the largest producer is an important sandstone producing State of India. It is an excellent building stone. It can be chiseled and dressed to a smooth surfaces in various attractive shapes. The sandstone has a varity of users such as roofing, flooring, paving, paneling, beams, pillars, arches, doors and window sills, wall facing, fence posts, mile stones etc. It is especially useful for exterior cladding in sea shore building due to acid and thermal resistance properties. As such the effect of saline water is negligible on sandstone. It is also congenial for use in chemical industries as flooring, wall fixing and lining due to its acid and alkali resistant properties. Its is also suitable for carving and making windows and jallies.

The standstone is being quarried and used from centuries and a number of historical buildings and monuments such as Buddhist Stupas of Saranath, Red Fort, Sansad Bhawan, Rashtrapati Bhawan and National Museum, India Gate in Delhi; Chhitar Palace and Umaid Bhawan in Jodhpur; Fatehpur Sikri, Red Fort in Agra; Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha in Jaipur.

In the recent times the demand for Rajasthan's red sendstone has witnessed a perceptible rise despite the white marble being a highly demanded product for long years.