India cannot mine its way out of a critical minerals shortage fast enough. That was the message from NITI Aayog, the government’s top policy think tank, at a forum in New Delhi this week where officials and steel executives mapped out how the country plans to secure the raw materials behind its next industrial leap.
Anupam Lahiri, programme director at NITI Aayog, told the 15th India Minerals & Metals Forum, organized by the Indian Chamber of Commerce, that domestic exploration will take years to yield mineable reserves. Recycling, he said, can move faster.
“India’s critical minerals journey cannot depend on mining alone,” Lahiri said. “Domestic exploration will take time, so we also need to focus on the resources that are already around us. E-waste, battery waste, mine overburden and tailings have the potential to become important sources of critical minerals if we can build the right ecosystem around them.”
The Waste Argument
Lahiri said the near-term fix is unglamorous but practical: make recycling profitable, build incentives for industry, and push emerging technologies out of the lab and into commercial use.
“Overseas partnerships will continue to play an important role, but in the near term, recycling offers India the fastest and most practical path to strengthening its critical minerals supply,” he said.
NITI Aayog has formed a technical committee to study how much mineral value can be recovered from mine tailings and overburden dumps. Coal India, Singareni Collieries, Jindal Steel and Adani have presented findings so far. Lahiri pointed to Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s extraction of rare earth elements from fly ash as proof the approach already works.
He also flagged an unresolved problem: how royalties should apply when critical minerals are pulled from a coal mine that’s already licensed for coal. State-run KABIL is chasing mineral assets abroad in Australia, Argentina and the United States, he said, though many host countries require ore processing on their own soil first, which limits how much value India can capture downstream.
Government’s Three-Pronged Push
Dr. Pankaj Satija, chairperson of ICC’s National Expert Committee on Minerals & Metals, opened the forum by laying out the government’s parallel strategy: faster domestic exploration, e-waste recycling, and mineral recovery from industrial waste like steel slag and fly ash.
“Critical minerals are going to play a defining role in India’s future,” Satija said. “India has already identified 31 critical minerals, and the government’s approach is moving on three fronts—speeding up domestic exploration, treating e-waste as a valuable resource through recycling, and recovering critical minerals from industrial waste such as steel slag and fly ash.”
More than 500 exploration blocks are currently active, Satija said. He also pointed to deepening cooperation with the United States through the FORGE initiative launched in February 2026 and the PACT Initiative that followed weeks later, which covered lithium refining, cathode materials and synthetic graphite production during a visit by the US Secretary of State. India is pursuing similar ties with Argentina and other Latin American countries, he said.
Steel’s Expansion Raises The Stakes
The push for secure mineral supply is tied directly to India’s steel ambitions. Sushanta Kumar Mishra, executive in-charge of Tata Steel’s Ferro Alloys & Minerals Division, said national steel output is targeted to nearly double to 300 million tonnes by 2030, then reach 500 million tonnes by 2047, up from roughly 150-160 million tonnes today.
Tata Steel is chasing 40 million tonnes of capacity, up from its current 24 million tonnes, and is steering its ferroalloys business toward higher-value products. Research at its Sukinda Valley site has already produced successful trials recovering nickel and cobalt from chromite overburden, Mishra said. He called for clearer rules on how minerals pulled from mine overburden should be licensed.
Tushar Chakraborty, executive director at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India, said the industry needs to think past production targets.
“The real challenge is ensuring that this growth remains competitive and sustainable,” Chakraborty said. “That means improving productivity, securing reliable access to raw materials and building supply chains that can withstand future disruptions.”
Mining The Waste Already On Hand
N. D. Rao, president-projects at Atha & Amalgam Steel Group, pointed to new reduction roasting technology being trialled in Bhubaneswar that converts lower-grade iron ores into magnetite, lifting iron content from around 62% to as high as 70%. He cited Vadodara-based Rubamin’s success extracting lithium from e-waste as evidence that India’s waste streams can be commercially mined.
R. R. Sathpathy of Lloyds Metals & Energy described the transformation of the company’s Surjagad iron ore mine in Maharashtra, once known for insurgency-related instability, into a fully electrified site running on battery-powered dumpers and shovels. Carbon emissions there have dropped from 11-12 kg per tonne to 3-3.5 kg per tonne, with a target of 1-1.5 kg once a planned 110 MW solar-and-wind hybrid supply comes online later this year.
The waste India already produces, officials at the forum argued, may prove easier to unlock than the minerals still buried underground.
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