With the signing of Critical Mineral partnership agreement between
India-Australia, India has embarked to make itself immune from supply shocks and promote domestic mining of minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel which have applications in industries ranging from automobile, defense, nuclear energy and electronics. It will help India
in installing 175GW of renewable energy capacity by FY
2022 and further expand it to 500 GW by 2030. India being the second largest market
in Asia for new solar PV capacity (
13 GW) and fourth for total installation (
60.4 GW) in FY 2021 will be requiring minerals to scale up its capacity addition. In an effort to attain self-reliance in critical and strategic minerals, Khanij Bidesh Ltd is mandated to acquire mineral mines in South America which has got some of the largest reserves of lithium globally, for instance Chile has 9200 MT and Argentina has 2200 MT of lithium reserves. Also,
India has set to move towards full electric mobility by FY2030 which will be a major driver among others. By signing of various MOUs with foreign governments, India is looking to be a major player in critical mineral sector. Critical minerals will be playing a major role in India’s clean energy transition and help in meeting the objective of making India net zero emitter by 2070 & cutting carbon emission by 33-35%by 2050. 