Critical minerals crisis, Indian perspective.

 

Critical minerals are those minerals which are used in critical industrial sectors like Electronics, defense, clean energy harnessing etc.. They are rare earth minerals that includes 17 minerals, 15 lanthanides and Yitrium and scantium. As the science and technology progress, the demand for such minerals are skyrocketing day by day.

The potential use of these minerals are highly diverse. Its applications are mainly found in semiconductor chips, solar panels, medical equipments, wind energy sector, Electronic vehicles and even in defense equipments. China leads in this sector both in its production as well as in processing. Latin american countries, and some african countries are sensed with abundant resources of these minerals so that developed countries like US, Japan, Australia, France etc are already making lots of diplomatic efforts to secure their supply chain of these elements for future.

As far as india is concerned, there are some challenges to assure the supply of these minerals for our coming generations. Firstly, as these are found in highly sensitive regions of the world, to sense the resources before the interference of developed countries, is very difficult. Secondly, this sector is completely dominated by China as of now. Indias deteriorated relationship with China is a huge huddle to tackle these demand- supply mismatch of critical minerals for india. Thirdly, the existing resourceful countries of this sector have already signed long term treaties with US, European union, Australia, and Japan, so that getting into this market is a tough call to india. All these challenges compel India to find new supply chain, or else the country would face extreme shortage of these minerals to meet up its requirements. Though India have some resources of Rare earth minerals, it's not sufficient to meet India's demand. The exclusion from recently framed mineral security partnership by western countries, is also to be considered as the diplomatic failure of India.

By understanding this upcoming crisis, Govt of india launched an initiative called KABIL( Kanij Bidesh India Limted), a public sector undertaking to promote domestic production and to find resorces in other countries. One can't argue about the success of this program, but steps like this are really admirable. The only solution to meet this crisis is to make friendly relationships with resource-rich nations and to develop new supply chains for critical elements. Or else, India will be defenestrated to far away in its scientific innovations. SDG target to achieve net zero emission by 2070, will be an unfulfilled dream if the Govt couldn't act forsightedly.