By Dipak Kurmi
The global race to decarbonize economies and pivot toward advanced technologies has reshaped geopolitics. In earlier centuries, empires fought over spices, later over oil and gas; today, the contests are over critical minerals. These elements—scarce, strategic, and indispensable—form the invisible backbone of the modern world, powering everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to wind turbines and defense systems. For India, a nation at the crossroads of rapid industrial growth and climate responsibility, ensuring reliable access to these minerals is not simply an economic requirement but a strategic imperative.
In January 2025, India launched the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), a seven-year plan running from 2024–25 to 2030–31. With a proposed expenditure of ₹16,300 crore and an expected additional investment of ₹18,000 crore by public sector undertakings and private stakeholders, the mission is not merely a mining initiative but a comprehensive national strategy. It is designed to secure energy independence, catalyze industrial transformation, and anchor India’s technological sovereignty in an era where supply chains are volatile and access to resources often dictates global influence.
Defining the Critical
Critical minerals are not uniformly defined across the world. Each country identifies its list based on industrial priorities, technological aspirations, and vulnerabilities in supply chains. For India, the Ministry of Mines in 2023 released a list of 30 critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements (REEs), and others such as antimony, germanium, molybdenum, and zirconium. What unites them is their indispensability: they are essential for clean energy technologies, telecommunications, high-tech electronics, aerospace, and defense.
Lithium, cobalt, and nickel form the heart of electric vehicle batteries and grid-scale energy storage systems. Rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium make wind turbines spin efficiently. Gallium, germanium, and indium are crucial for semiconductors and photovoltaics. Titanium, tungsten, and tantalum underpin defense hardware. Without these minerals, neither India’s renewable energy ambitions nor its digital economy can thrive.
The Energy Transition and India’s Critical Needs
India has declared ambitious climate commitments: reducing the emissions intensity of GDP by 45 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, sourcing half of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels by the same year, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. None of these milestones can be met without a steady stream of critical minerals.
Solar power, currently standing at 64 GW, depends on silicon, tellurium, indium, and gallium. With India’s target to add hundreds of gigawatts of solar capacity in the coming decade, these minerals are as vital as sunlight itself. Wind energy, set to expand from 42 GW to 140 GW by 2030, demands neodymium and dysprosium for high-performance magnets. Electric mobility, where the government envisions 30 percent penetration by 2030, requires vast quantities of lithium, cobalt, and nickel to fuel batteries. Meanwhile, lithium-ion storage systems are central to integrating renewable energy into the grid, ensuring power stability and backup during peak demand.
The clean energy revolution thus stands on the shoulders of obscure elements that lie buried deep within the earth or trapped in industrial waste streams.
Charting the Roadmap: NCMM’s Structure
The legal foundation of the NCMM rests on the amendment of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, under which the central government has gained exclusive rights to auction 24 of the 30 identified critical minerals. This centralization is designed to streamline processes and avoid the inefficiencies of fragmented state-level control.
But the mission extends far beyond auctioning. Its objectives encompass exploration, mining, processing, recycling, research and development, human resource training, and strategic international collaborations. Recognizing the risks of over-reliance on imports, NCMM promotes both domestic extraction and overseas acquisitions. Public and private players are being encouraged to secure stakes in foreign mines, thereby diversifying India’s global footprint.
A notable feature is the ₹100 crore allocation for pilot projects to extract minerals from unconventional sources such as mine tailings, fly ash, red mud, and overburden. These efforts transform waste into wealth, reducing environmental hazards while strengthening strategic supplies.
Recycling: Mining Above Ground
Perhaps the most forward-looking aspect of NCMM is its emphasis on recycling. The Union Cabinet has approved a ₹1,500 crore Incentive Scheme under the mission to build capacity for recovering minerals from secondary sources—e-waste, lithium-ion battery scrap, and end-of-life vehicles. The target is ambitious: 270 kiloton annual recycling capacity, yielding 40 kilotons of critical minerals, attracting around ₹8,000 crore in investments, and generating nearly 70,000 jobs.
In a country where electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream, this initiative simultaneously addresses environmental challenges and reduces dependence on volatile global supply chains. By turning discarded gadgets and spent batteries into strategic resources, India is laying the foundation for a circular economy.
Innovation and Intellectual Property: A Patent Push
The NCMM has set its sights on innovation. One of its targets is to support and monitor the filing of 1,000 patents across the critical minerals value chain by 2030–31. The logic is simple: access to raw materials alone is insufficient without the technological capacity to process, refine, and utilize them effectively.
Already, signs of momentum are visible. In May 2025, 21 patents were filed in India within the critical minerals ecosystem, followed by 41 more in June. Patent grants too have accelerated—two in May and eight in June—covering innovations ranging from ytterbium-doped metal oxide nanoparticles and nickel vanadate thin films to tungsten-polymer composites, tantalum-doped solid-state electrolytes, and advanced anode materials. These breakthroughs address sectors as varied as clean energy, defense, and next-generation electronics.
The mission’s design reflects a recognition that technological sovereignty depends as much on intellectual property as on physical resources. By nurturing domestic innovation, India aims to move up the value chain from a raw material supplier to a hub of advanced applications.
Centres of Excellence: Anchoring Research
To consolidate scientific capabilities, the Ministry of Mines has designated seven institutions as Centres of Excellence under the NCMM. These include four IITs—Bombay, Hyderabad, Dhanbad (ISM), and Roorkee—and three premier research laboratories: CSIR-IMMT Bhubaneswar, CSIR-NML Jamshedpur, and NFTDC Hyderabad. These centres will serve as incubators for cutting-edge research, backed by project-based funding from government R\&D schemes, industry collaborations, and venture capital.
By fostering synergy between academia, industry, and the state, the CoEs are expected to advance everything from mineral processing technologies to recycling methods, enhancing India’s self-reliance and global competitiveness.
Global Geopolitics of Minerals
India’s mission unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying global competition. China currently dominates the supply chains of rare earths, cobalt refining, and lithium processing, wielding immense leverage over strategic industries worldwide. The United States, European Union, Japan, and Australia are racing to secure alternate sources, form alliances, and develop domestic capabilities. In this landscape, India cannot afford passivity.
By launching NCMM, India positions itself not just as a consumer but as a participant in the global mineral order. Through bilateral agreements, overseas asset acquisitions, and contributions to global stockpiles, the mission aims to ensure resilience in the face of geopolitical turbulence.
A Long-Term Strategic Asset
Critical minerals are often described as the oil of the twenty-first century, but in truth, they are more than that. Oil powered the industrial age, but critical minerals power the digital and green age simultaneously. They underpin artificial intelligence, 5G telecommunications, defense aerospace, and renewable technologies. Whoever controls their supply chains holds a decisive edge in the industries of tomorrow.
For India, the mission is thus a matter of national security as much as economic policy. It ties directly into Atmanirbhar Bharat—the vision of self-reliance—while also providing a platform for India to emerge as a responsible global partner in the fight against climate change.
Building a Mineral Future
The National Critical Mineral Mission represents a historic pivot in India’s development story. By investing in exploration, recycling, innovation, and global partnerships, the mission seeks to transform vulnerabilities into strengths. It recognizes that mineral independence is not just about digging deeper into the earth but also about mining smarter, recycling better, and innovating faster.
The stakes could not be higher. As the nation chases its climate targets—halving emissions intensity by 2030, achieving 50 percent non-fossil power capacity, and reaching net zero by 2070—the demand for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths will surge exponentially. Meeting that demand without compromising sovereignty requires foresight, coordination, and sustained investment.
India’s NCMM is not merely an economic plan; it is a strategic vision for the twenty-first century. It redefines national strength in terms of resource security, technological innovation, and environmental stewardship. If successful, it will not only secure India’s place in the clean energy future but also reshape its role in the global order. The oil age gave rise to petro-states. The mineral age will give rise to techno-states. With the NCMM, India signals its intent to be counted among them.
(The writer can be reached at dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com)
