Thar Desert scale. Barmer district is in the news due to its large oil basin. The British exploration company Cairn Energy started production of oil on a large scale. Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya are the major oil fields in the district. This is India's biggest oil discovery in 22 years. This promises to transform the local economy, which has long suffered from the harshness of the desert. The Government of India initiated departmental exploration for oil in 1955-56 in the Jaisalmer area, Oil India Limited's discovered natural gas in 1988 in the Jaisalmer basin. Also known for their fine leather messenger bags
Thar Desert hymn in the Rigveda mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata mention that the Sarasvati dried up in a desert. Most scholars agree that at least some of the references to the Sarasvati in the Rigveda refer to the Ghaggar-Hakra River. There is also a small present-day Sarasvati River ("Sarsuti") that joins the Ghaggar. The epic "Mahabharata" mentions the Kamyaka Forest situated on the western boundary of the Kuru Kingdom (Kuru Proper and Kurujangala), on the banks of