PARLIAMENT QUESTION: RARE EARTH RESERVES IN THE COUNTRY

PARLIAMENT QUESTION: RARE EARTH RESERVES IN THE COUNTRY

India holds world’s third largest rare earth resources (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, January, 2025). Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of DAE, has established the following REE resources in the country.

Indian resource of rare earths is primarily lean with respect to grade and it is tied with radioactivity making the extraction long, complex and expensive. Further Monazite resource predominantly contains light rare earth elements while heavy rare earth elements are not available in economically extractable quantities. While India has existing facilities from mining to separation and refining to oxide form and also developed capability of metal extraction, further industrial scale facilities (intermediate) from alloy, magnet etc. is non-existent. Hence, despite adequate rare-earth resources, the production capacities are at a limited level on account of absence of mid-stream and downstream industries in the RE value chain.

The steps taken by Govt. for the development of RE Sector in the last five years and future roadmap of Govt. for the development of RE sector are as follows:

This information was given by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.