Critical and Strategic Minerals in India

India imports almost all the lithium and cobalt it needs today. That gap worries planners chasing a 2070 net-zero target.

Exploration Licence

A new permit letting private firms search for deep-seated minerals.

KABIL

A state-run firm that sources critical minerals from overseas mines.

REPM

A scheme to build India’s own rare-earth magnet manufacturing.

The 2023 Law That Opened Up Mining

• Critical minerals matter for two reasons. They power key parts of the economy, and their global supply sits in just a few countries.
• That concentration creates real risk. A supply disruption in one country can ripple across the world.
• In 2023, Parliament passed the MMDR Amendment Act. It removed six minerals from India’s atomic minerals list: lithium, beryllium, titanium, niobium, tantalum, and zirconium.
• This single change mattered a lot. Private companies had been barred from mining these six minerals, under the older atomic-minerals rules.
• The same Act gave the Central Government a new power. It can now auction mineral concessions for critical minerals directly, though states still keep the auction revenue.
• The Act also created a new Exploration Licence. This lets private and foreign firms search for critical and deep-seated minerals, awarded through auction.
• A Ministry of Mines committee identified 30 minerals as critical for India, back in November 2022. Of these, 24 are formally listed in the MMDR Act’s own schedule.

The National Critical Mineral Mission

• The Union Cabinet approved the National Critical Mineral Mission on 29 January 2025. Its total outlay is ₹34,300 crore, spread across seven years, through 2030-31.
• The Mission had first been announced earlier, in the Union Budget for 2024-25.
• Under this Mission, the Geological Survey of India has a big target. It must run 1,200 domestic exploration projects by 2030-31.
• It also targets overseas mines: 26 through public-sector firms, and 24 more through private companies.
• KABIL, a joint venture of three public-sector firms, sources critical minerals from abroad. It already backs lithium projects in Argentina, Australia, and Chile.
• India joined the Minerals Security Partnership in June 2023, as its 14th member. This is a US-led group focused on critical mineral supply chains.
• Despite naming 30 critical minerals, India isn’t rich in most of them. It still depends on imports for key ones, like lithium and cobalt.

Why These Minerals Matter

• India’s push is driven by its clean-energy goals. Lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements go into EV batteries, solar cells, and wind turbine magnets.
• Demand for all three is set to rise sharply, as India scales up its own clean-energy plans.
• The old atomic-minerals list dated from an earlier era. Back then, lithium and titanium mattered mainly for nuclear and defence use.
• Their civilian uses now matter much more. Batteries and electronics use them far more than nuclear or defence work ever did.
• Deep-seated minerals, like gold, cobalt, and rare earths, cost more to explore than surface minerals like sand or limestone. The new Exploration Licence exists to draw private and foreign expertise into that harder search.
• This whole effort is separate from India’s Deep Ocean Mission. That mission explores seabed nodules, not land-based mineral blocks, even though both feed the same larger goal.
• Rare Earth Elements are a set of 17 metallic elements. China leads global mining of these by a huge margin. The United States ranks second, not India.

The 2026 Auction Push

What went up for auction in the Andaman Sea on 1 October 2026?

• 1 October 2026: [Policy] The Mines Ministry put two offshore mineral blocks in the Andaman Sea up for auction. (Source: PIB)
• The blocks are Sewell Rise-01 and West Sewell Ridge-01. Together they cover over 1,632 sq km. (Source: PIB)
• Both hold polymetallic nodules and crusts. These carry cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper and rare earth elements. (Source: PIB)
• West Sewell Ridge-01 lies off Great Nicobar Island. Winners get a Composite Licence, and bids close on 28 December 2026. (Source: PIB)
• The auction runs under the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002. (Source: PIB)
• This builds on India’s first offshore auction, launched on 28 November 2024. It offered 13 blocks, seven of them nodule blocks off Great Nicobar. (Source: PIB)
• Read more: The Deep Ocean Mission and Samudrayaan and Cabinet Approves ‘Samudra Manthan’ National Offshore Exploration Scheme.

• On 15 July 2026, the government launched the Eighth Tranche of critical and strategic mineral block auctions. It covers 20 blocks across nine states.
• Of these 20 blocks, 13 are newly identified, and 7 are being offered a second time. The list includes molybdenum, graphite, rare earth elements, lithium, and gallium.
• Seven earlier tranches are already done. India has now auctioned 56 of 88 critical mineral blocks taken up so far. That’s a success rate above 63%.
• FY 2025-26 was a record year for mining auctions overall. The government auctioned 212 mineral blocks that year, the most in any year since auctions began.
• Parliament also passed the MMDR Amendment Bill, 2026, on 13 August 2026. It aims to bring long-term fiscal stability to the major minerals sector.
• This amendment doesn’t touch states’ existing rights. States already receive about 90% of all mining taxes and payments, and that share stays unchanged.
• States currently collect about 14 mining-related taxes and fees. From FY2015-16 to FY2025-26, major mining states earned over ₹5 lakh crore this way. The Centre earned just ₹82,000 crore in that same time.

Building India’s Own Magnet Supply

• The Union Cabinet approved the REPM scheme on 26 November 2025, with a financial outlay of ₹7,280 crore.
• REPM stands for Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets. This scheme aims to build India’s own manufacturing capacity for them.
• Its target is 6,000 metric tons per year of integrated capacity. That covers the full chain, from raw NdPr oxide all the way to finished magnets.
• These magnets aren’t a small niche item. They power electric vehicles and wind turbines. They also go into phones, and into defence gear.
• The scheme’s real goal is cutting India’s import dependence in this specific sector.
• In July 2026, the Ministry extended its global tender’s bid deadline for this scheme, from 29 July to 12 August 2026.

The Resource-Rich Trap

• UPSC CSP 2025 tested exactly this distinction. It asked exam-takers to judge several statements. These covered the Minerals Security Partnership and India’s critical minerals.
• One statement said India had joined the MSP. That statement is correct.
• Another statement said something different. It claimed India is rich in all 30 of its critical minerals. That claim is false.
• India still depends on imports for several key ones, including lithium and cobalt. This holds true even though it names them as critical.
• This is the exact trap to watch for. The word “critical” here just means strategically important. It says nothing about how much of it India can actually mine at home.
• See UPSC CSP 2025, Q6, for the full question and its answer options.