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Facilitating the domestic private sector to secure critical mineral assets abroad and transport them back home serves as the need of the hour for India, Union Minister of Coal and Mines G Kishan Reddy stated on the sidelines of the CII Global Summit in New Delhi.
Addressing the media, Reddy stated that relying on the private sector to expand overseas operations will safeguard domestic requirements across high-technology and consumer industries as India pushes to reduce its import dependence. Most of all, we are giving encouragement to the private sector. We are motivating them. Through the Indian Embassy and through the foreign embassies in India, the private sector can go to the mineral nations and do land acquisition, mining, semi processing, and bring raw material to India, Reddy said. We are encouraging this. We are talking to different companies. More than PSUs, going to the private sector and bringing critical minerals to India is the need of the hour, he added. Highlighting the global and domestic significance of these resources, the minister noted that economic and industrial advancement depends heavily on their sustained supply. Critical minerals are not only for India, but are an important segment for the whole world. The whole country and the whole world is talking about this. We have signed a lot of MoU regarding this segment. I am going to meet people from different countries, because today without critical minerals there can be no development, he said. From cell phones to space technology, from fan to fridge to camera, everywhere there is a demand for critical minerals. That's why the government of India, which is dependent on foreign countries on critical minerals, wants to become self-sufficient. That's why the exploration activity in the country has increased, Reddy noted. Due to limited domestic lithium availability, the Centre is actively acquiring assets in key resource-rich nations while driving private participation. We have done exploration activities in different places in India, but lithium is a very scarce resource in India. That is why in Argentina we have done 5 lithium land blocks acquisition. Exploration work is going on. We are also talking to Australia and to Chile. We are encouraging private companies to go abroad to acquire lithium blocks and bring them to India. Government to government level and private to private, both are going on, he stated. Domestically, the government is expanding recycling and refining capacities to meet demand through urban mining. And the national critical mineral mission we have started an incentive scheme of Rs 36,000 crore. And through urban mining, through e-waste, we want to extract critical minerals. The amount of critical minerals India needs, in that 25-30% from e-waste through recycling we can extract critical minerals, Reddy said. The Ministry has shortlisted 58 recycling entities out of 125 applicants under an initial phase supported by an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore, with individual allocations referred to NITI Aayog. At the same time, four mineral processing plants are being established across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha to process imported raw materials, domestic reserves, and recycled output. (ANI)
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