With the speeding global race for energy transition materials, exploration of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth elements has emerged as a strategic priority for India. The Government of India, therefore, launched the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) in 2025 to secure domestic supply chains, which will play a key role in energy transition, technological advancement, national security and economic self-reliance. 

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The mission has appointed the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to undertake 1,200 exploration projects between 2024-25 and 2030-31. With 24 minerals now listed under Part D of the MMDR Act, the Central Government exercises exclusive hold over auctioning mining leases and licensing for these strategic resources, indicating a decisive policy realignment.

Industry progresses with clean energy transition

Critical minerals are pivotal to India’s clean energy ambitions. Silicon and gallium, among others, are required for solar panels. Wind turbine magnets depend on rare earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium. EV batteries and energy storage systems require cobalt, lithium and nickel. India’s push toward 30 per cent EV penetration, expanded renewable capacity and its net-zero target for 2070 increased demand for these minerals.

At the same time, establishing competitive value chains in these minerals can attract foreign direct investment and strengthen India’s position in global supply chains. It would also reduce current import dependency.

In exclusive interactions between AL Circle and industrial experts at the recently held Global Metals and Mining Meet 2026, organised by ET Infra, they shared their insights and opinions on the seminal importance of critical minerals for building a clean energy system and creating a geopolitical vantage point in the Indian landscape. 

Bridging geological knowledge gaps

Experts emphasise that exploration today is increasingly technology-driven. Dr Joyesh Bagchi, Additional Director General (PSS), Geological Survey of India, noted that “exploration is getting more and more technology intensive. So, we have technologies developing every year for different kinds of baseline data, different kinds of analysis of this baseline data for identifying targets which need to be explored.”

While India possesses strong geological and geophysical mapping capabilities, he highlighted emerging data gaps such as the “other kinds of baseline that are emerging are magnetotelluric maps, isotope maps, geo-chronological maps. These are the things which are not there in this country in terms of a country's safety-wide coverage.”

He further stressed the role of digital tools, stating that “analysing 20-layer data is humanly impossible. So, what AI/ML (AI and Machine Learning) does is uses all of them together in its own algorithm and tries to find a pattern out of it.”

The urgency for capacity building

Dr Kali Sanjay, Chief Scientist and Head of CSIR-IMMT, commented, “India has a fantastic platform in all the sectors. We are not new. See, we have been doing it for bauxite… We have the Geological Society, we have IBM here. So only the difference between those commercial and now is that this criticality has opened up our eyes to look into the minor metals.”

He emphasised the need for a proactive supply security, noting, “As long as we assume that we have a requirement of a certain commodity and we are free to get from anywhere and beyond the boundaries, borders. But it's also necessary for us to acquire the foreign assets.”

Hence, the urgency is evident that domestic exploration and overseas asset acquisition must go hand-in-hand to ensure uninterrupted industrial growth. 

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Regulation and strategy in the pipeline

From an industry perspective, time-bound clearances and ecosystem coordination are critical. Rajnish A. Khale, Director (Marketing), IREL (India) Limited, emphasised, “From our experience, we are finding that the regulatory clearances need to be done in a time-bound manner, so that the projects are economically viable, as well as the material is made available to the industry in a time-bound manner.”

Commending the National Critical Mineral Mission as a precursor to systemic change he mentioned, “At present, our government of India is totally keyed into that. And, the precursor is the National Critical Mineral Mission.”

He too mentioned that domestic mine development and overseas asset acquisition are underway. “Assets from abroad are also being looked into… In near future, you will see a marked change in the whole infrastructure with respect to this critical mineral, battery mineral,” he added.

Building national security and autonomy for a green future

Critical minerals have direct implications for defence, aerospace and nuclear applications. Their concentration in limited geographies globally exposes supply chains to geopolitical risks. Reducing import dependency is elemental for national security.

Boosting domestic exploration, accelerating auctions of over 100 mineral blocks, expanding offshore exploration for promoting recovery from secondary sources like red mud, India aims to build a resilient value chain.

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