NEW DELHI: India has the minerals, but not the momentum. Despite holding the world’s third-largest rare earth reserves, it still takes up to 15 years to turn discovery into production.
It’s a delay that keeps India digging through paperwork while China digs the earth.
In this deep-dive by Adithi Gurkar, geologist and explorer Channamallikarjun B. Patil explains how bureaucracy, shallow drilling limits, and outdated frameworks keep India’s mineral wealth trapped underground.
From AI-powered exploration to the quiet revolution in mining policy, this story unpacks the tectonic shifts needed to turn geological fortune into national power.
India sits on one of the world’s richest beds of rare earths and critical minerals, yet decades of policy paralysis, red tape, and misplaced caution have left this geological goldmine locked underground while China keeps racing ahead.
Beneath India’s ancient peninsular shield lies a geological inheritance that should position the nation as a critical minerals superpower. Rare earth elements, lithium, nickel, titanium (the raw materials that fuel everything from wind turbines to fighter jets to smartphone batteries) rest in abundance across a landmass that was once part of Gondwanaland, the southern fragment of the supercontinent Pangaea.
The numbers tell a compelling story. India holds approximately 6.9 million metric tonnes of rare earth reserves, the third-largest in the world. The country has around 30 critical minerals, with significant deposits scattered from the lithium fields of Karnataka’s Mandya district to the monazite-rich coastal sands of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.
Yet this geological fortune remains largely untapped, was locked beneath technological deficits, and frameworks that seemed designed to discourage the very exploration they claim to promote. However, the recent policy changes, especially those post 2023 have marked a new dawn.
“India has done a stupendous job when it comes to mapping and preliminary exploration,” says Channamallikarjun B. Patil, founder of GeoExpOre. “Ninety-five to ninety-eight per cent of the country has been covered in this regard, thanks to organizations like the Geological Survey of India, the Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Ltd, and the Atomic Minerals Directorate.”
This groundwork positions India to accelerate into the next stage of mineral development
“This is a very basic indicator, and it does not provide sufficient data. What the world wants to know is how much of these critical minerals India truly holds and where exactly they are present.”
The contrast with China reveals not merely a gap in capability but a chasm in strategic vision.
While the world fixated on Gulf oil, China quietly recognised the value of rare earth elements decades ago. Today, the dragon controls approximately 95 per cent of the global rare earth market and its technology (elements that serve as raw material for virtually all clean energy technology, defence systems, electric vehicles, batteries, and consumer electronics).
A watershed moment arrived in 2023 when the Mines & Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act (MMDR) of 1957 was amended to allow private sector participation in the exploration of 29 critical and deep-seated minerals. The introduction of an Exploration Licence represented a philosophical shift, an acknowledgement that government agencies alone could not unlock India’s mineral wealth.
Around 20 companies have benefitted from this policy change, with a handful proving particularly instrumental. Patil’s own company, GeoExpOre, is presently involved in two rare earth exploration projects funded by the National Mineral Exploration Trust, with encouraging results.
Yet even this progress reveals the grinding reality of mineral exploration in India.
“Generally, exploration is a long drawn-out process,” Patil explains. “Earlier, thanks to previous government policies, it would take around 14 to 15 years to monetize a mine—from discovery to production.”
