Ten Times by 2047: India's Critical Minerals Gap Is a Processing Problem, Not a Mining One
Summary
A Grant Thornton Bharat report released on 30 July 2026 projects that India's demand for critical minerals and rare earth elements could rise four to ten times by 2047, and warns that the country's advanced manufacturing ambitions could be constrained unless capability is built beyond mining.
●India's policy response is the National Critical Mineral Mission, launched in 2025, under which the Geological Survey of India is to conduct 1,200 exploration projects between 2024-25 and 2030-31.
●A Ministry of Mines committee constituted in November 2022 identified 30 critical minerals, of which 24 were placed in Part D of the First Schedule of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, giving the Central Government exclusive authority to auction their mining leases and composite licences.
●The demand is driven by clean energy: silicon, tellurium, indium and gallium for solar photovoltaics, and dysprosium and neodymium for the permanent magnets in wind turbines and electric vehicles.
Critical minerals are those whose supply risk is high and whose economic or strategic importance makes disruption costly, a definition that is country-specific rather than universal because it depends on a nation's industrial structure and import exposure.
●A committee of the Ministry of Mines constituted in November 2022 identified 30 critical minerals for India, and 24 of them were placed in Part D of the First Schedule of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.
●That placement is legally significant: it transfers the power to auction mining leases and composite licences for those minerals from State governments to the Central Government, on the reasoning that strategic minerals require a national rather than State-level allocation policy.
●The National Critical Mineral Mission, launched in 2025, coordinates exploration through the Geological Survey of India, acquisition of overseas assets, recycling, and the building of domestic processing, with a Centre of Excellence on Critical Minerals to keep the list current.
Placing 24 minerals in Part D of the MMDR Schedule was a federal reallocation as much as a mining reform — auctioning power moved from the States to the Centre.
◎ In Simple Words
Electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines need certain uncommon metals to work. India will need far more of them in the coming decades than it uses now. The harder problem is not digging them out of the ground but cleaning and separating them afterwards, and almost all of that work currently happens in a small number of countries. India is trying to build both the mining and the processing at the same time.
Factual Pointers
Practice · 2 questions
What is the legal significance of placing a mineral in Part D of the First Schedule of the MMDR Act, 1957?
Rare earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium are critical primarily because of their use in:
Industry, MSME & Services
This sub-topic has appeared in 11 UPSC Prelims questions.