Introduction

India’s vision of an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) has been met with a stiff challenge in recent times as China has tightened its export controls and introduced trade restrictions on several rare earth elements^[1] (“REE”) – particularly impacting sectors such as automotive (specifically, electric vehicles and batteries), wind power sector, semiconductors and defence equipment. This has caused an immediate impact on the global supply chains in the related sectors also affecting the United States, United Kingdom, Japan along with India.

This geopolitical trade war has disrupted the manufacturing capabilities of key industries in several countries, and China with its monopoly on rare earth minerals, has forced countries to either find alternative supply chains or re-examine their trade policies in the short-term and seek sovereignty in the long-term.

In this scenario, India is uniquely placed – with the fifth-largest reserves of REE in the world^[2] (estimated at 6.9 million metric tonnes). However, while REE is critical for energy transition and sustainable manufacturing solutions, the extraction of REE involves significant capital expenditure and is often environmentally damaging. In India, there has been a policy level recognition of this reality as well as the criticality of domestic capacity building for REE in order to achieve the country’s net-zero targets by 2070.

National Critical Minerals Mission

In 2025, the Ministry of Mines, Government of India (“MoM”) introduced the National Critical Minerals Mission (“NCMM”) for a term of 7 (seven) years from 2024-25 to 2030-31. The vision statement echoes the need for mineral sovereignty for India’s long-term success of critical infrastructure sectors, as it states that – “NCMM envisions securing long-term sustainable supply of critical minerals and strengthening India’s critical mineral value chains encompassing all stages from mineral exploration and mining to beneficiation, processing and recovery from end-of-life products.” In order to achieve this objective, the NCMM has identified few critical measures ranging from domestic capacity building to acquisition of mineral assets abroad as well as recycling of critical minerals.

The Minerals (Evidence of Mineral Contents) Rules, 2015 (“Mineral Content Rules”)

The Mineral Content Rules set out the following stages of exploration of any mineral deposit:

• Reconnaissance Survey (exploration) (G4) – involves preliminary investigation of identified areas to locate potential mineralisation through results of regional geological studies, regional geological traverses and mapping, airborne geophysical survey, remote sensing or satellite data study;
• Preliminary Exploration (G3) – involves the initial delineation of an identified mineral deposit area by furthering the exploration to extend and identify both laterally and vertically down (third dimension) of the ore body through surface geological mapping, geophysical and geochemical studies or mapping;
• General Exploration (G2) – involves increasing the geological confidence level and understanding style and mode of occurrence of mineralisation through surface geological mapping (if not done in the previous stage of exploration), pitting or trenching or drilling, followed by sampling for evaluation of mineral quantity and quality.
• Detailed Exploration (G1) – involves the detailed three-dimensional delineation of a known mineral deposit achieved through sampling, such as from outcrops, pits, trenches, boreholes, shafts and tunnels etc.

Recent Amendments to the Mineral Content Rules

On June 12, 2025, the MoM amended the Mineral Content Rules – specifically, Serial No. III – Part III (which sets out the exploration norms for different types of deposits) (“2025 Amendment”). The Serial No. III which earlier set out the exploration norms for “Gemstones and rare metal pegmatites, reefs and veins/pipes” has now been amended and re-categorized in the following manner:

• III. Gem-stones – exclusively focused on gems-stones such as beryl, topaz, emerald deposits, diamond, and pockets/lenses/veins of fluorite found in carbonatite, etc.;
• III A. Rare metal and REE occurring in pegmatites, reefs and veins/pipes – new category introduced for rare metal and REE occurring in pegmatites, reefs and veins/pipes;
• III B. Rare metal and REE occurring in occurring in carbonatite and other alkali igneous rocks – new category introduced for rare metal and REE occurring in carbonatite and other alkali igneous rocks with further sub-categorization:
  i.  Tabular rare metal and REE deposits;
  ii. Lenticular rare metal and REE deposits in the form of veins/lenses.

This re-categorization also prescribes the revised exploration production norms as set out below:

The 2025 Amendment provides a more specific classification for mineral deposits, particularly distinguishing rare metal and REE occurrences based on their geological settings (for example – pegmatites vs. carbonatites) and even their shapes (such as, tabular vs. lenticular). This underscores the importance of the REE and the Government of India’s concerted effort to build a long-term stockpile of REE and consequently, achieve mineral sovereignty.

Inter-Ministerial Committee and Action Plan

The recent export curb measures by China have forced India to go back to the drawing board especially to re-strategize and address the immediate production threat faced by the automotive sector. The Government of India has recently conducted an inter-ministerial meeting and formed a co-ordination committee along with the Department of Atomic Energy, the MoM and several other ministries (such as commerce, steel, heavy industries and coal) – to form strategies to tackle the rare earth crisis on a real-time basis. Several news reports also indicate that the Government of India is contemplating issuing a strategic scheme with a corpus of INR 3,500 – INR 5,000 crores which will be designed towards promoting domestically manufactured rare earth minerals and magnets. The proposed scheme envisages incentives for domestic capacity building which will be distributed through the reverse bidding mechanism.

Conclusion

India’s REE reserves offer an untapped opportunity towards achieving autonomy and reducing reliance on countries such as China. However, this will require certain significant measures in India’s mining framework including investment in sustainable mining technologies (especially, in exploration and refining of REE) and private capital to develop such technologies; increasing privatization with defined incentives measures akin to production linked incentive schemes; creating an enabling framework for setting-up mining operations including single window clearances and reducing bureaucratic delays in grant of environmental clearances.

Further, India’s energy transition journey will require a delicate balance between domestic capacity building of REE and sustainable exploitation of its geographical endowment in the form of REE – a balance which is bound to test its global climate commitment credibility. India’s long-term success of its climate commitment targets will depend on its ability to transform the current crisis into a rare opportunity towards mineral sovereignty.

Endnotes:

[1] The REE is a collection of 17 elements, namely scandium, yttrium and lanthanides (15 elements in the periodic table with atomic numbers 57 to 71, namely lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb) and lutetium (Lu). REEs are characterised by high density, high melting point, high conductivity and high thermal conductance. A number of rare-earth minerals contain thorium and uranium in variable amounts, but they do not constitute essential components in the composition of the minerals. [Source – Indian Minerals Yearbook, 2022, Mineral Reviews (Volume III) – ISSN 0972-3625.]

[2] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1914305