Critical minerals are the oil of the twenty-first century — scarce, strategic, and fiercely contested. Lithium powers electric vehicle batteries. Cobalt enables energy storage systems. Rare earth elements drive wind turbines and defence electronics. Gallium and germanium are indispensable for semiconductors. China controls approximately 70% of global processing capacity for these minerals, 91% of rare earth refining, and 79% of refined cobalt production. India is 100% import-dependent for lithium and cobalt — and spent over ₹34,000 crore importing critical minerals in FY2023–24 alone.

This is not a supply chain vulnerability. It is a strategic dependency that touches India's EV ambitions, its 500 GW renewable energy target, its semiconductor programme, and its defence modernisation simultaneously.

The National Critical Mineral Mission

India's policy response — the National Critical Mineral Mission, launched in January 2025 — is the most serious domestic policy instrument India has deployed for mineral security. With a seven-year budget of ₹34,300 crore (including ₹16,300 crore in central government expenditure and ₹18,000 crore expected from PSUs), the NCMM covers the full critical minerals value chain: domestic exploration and mining, overseas asset acquisition, processing and refining capability, recycling infrastructure, and research and development.

The Geological Survey of India has undertaken over 1,200 domestic exploration projects under the NCMM framework, targeting mineral-rich zones from Rajasthan's rare earth deposits to Jammu and Kashmir's lithium reserves to Andhra Pradesh's cobalt belts. Over 100 critical mineral blocks are on track for auction by 2031. Of 55 blocks auctioned to date, 34 have been allocated — with Vedanta securing 10 blocks covering cobalt, rare earths, vanadium, graphite, and potash, among the largest private sector commitments to the programme.

The ₹1,500 crore urban mining initiative — approved under NCMM to build 270 kilotonnes of recycling capacity for critical minerals from e-waste and spent batteries — is a strategically smart complement to primary mining. Unlike greenfield mines that take years to produce, recycling infrastructure can supplement supply chains within months while addressing India's growing e-waste challenge simultaneously.

The Overseas Dimension

Domestic reserves are necessary but not sufficient. India's geological endowment of critical minerals — including significant cobalt ore (44.9 million tonnes), copper, graphite, and nickel — is largely unexplored. Even fully developed, domestic production will not meet India's clean energy and defence demands without overseas supply chain integration.

India has signed MoUs with Australia, Argentina, Chile, and the Democratic Republic of Congo for critical mineral exploration, technology transfer, and commercial investment. Its membership of the US-led Minerals Security Partnership — a 23-partner coalition that includes Australia, Canada, Japan, and the EU — provides a framework for coordinating supply chain security with like-minded partners and countering China's processing dominance.

The most consequential overseas partnership for India is with Australia. The Australia-India Critical Minerals Investment Partnership — announced in 2023 and operational since 2024 — is channelling Australian lithium, cobalt, and nickel into Indian processing and manufacturing partnerships. Australia's resource endowment and India's manufacturing scale are a natural match that neither country can fully exploit alone.

The Processing Gap

The NCMM's most difficult challenge is the one it is least equipped to solve quickly: processing and refining capacity. India has significant geological potential and growing overseas acquisition activity — but it lacks the midstream infrastructure to convert raw minerals into battery-grade lithium, refined cobalt, or separated rare earth elements. China built this processing dominance over two decades of deliberate industrial policy. India is starting from a near-zero base.

The Centres of Excellence established under NCMM in April 2025 and the NCMM Outreach Forum launched in June 2025 are the institutional infrastructure for building India's processing technology capability. But the "lab-to-factory" gap — between research capability and commercial-scale production — requires sustained investment in extractive metallurgy, refining technology, and the private sector partnerships that can scale laboratory results into industrial output.

India's critical minerals strategy is structurally sound. Its ambition matches the strategic imperative. The implementation pace — in processing capacity, overseas asset development, and domestic block operationalisation — must now match both.

The Hind covers policy, power, and strategic affairs from India's perspective. Views expressed are analytical and editorial.