Critical differences

India’s critical minerals strategy stands at a crossroads. In June 2023, the Government of India released a list of 30 critical minerals through a systematic three-stage assessment process evaluating economic importance, strategic value, and import dependencies. Yet two years later, policy implementation treats all 30 minerals with identical urgency, despite the methodology itself suggesting that different minerals face fundamentally different levels of vulnerability. This disconnect between strategic assessment and policy execution represents a critical flaw.

Within India’s list of 30 critical minerals, ‘rare earth elements’ appear as one category, even though geologically they comprise 17 elements — the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium.

The remaining 29 minerals — antimony, ber