"Mineral Resources: Lifeblood forManufacturing!In the recent years, every now and then, we have been listening deep concerns over the Resourcesecurity, resource nationalism, resource shortages, etc., by the major economies. In fact, thedeveloped economies such as United States (US), and many provinces of European Union (EU)had commissioned numerous studies to evaluate critical mineral resources (CMR) for theirmanufacturing economy. At the moment, India is far from this strategic thinking. We are stilldebating over the amendments introduced in the age old Mines and Mineral DevelopmentRegulation Act (MMDR), with a paltry budget of annual mineral exploration activities.The modern day economy is extensively dependent on a broader range of minerals as comparedto early twentieth century, when only a handful of the minerals were in demand by themanufacturing sector. Thanks to the disruptive technologies in the past decade! Almost the entireperiodic table is alluring us, to exploit distinguished properties of these minerals/elements in themodern day gadgets. The applications are unending – from basic infrastructure to defenseequipment, aircrafts to sophisticated electronic gadgets (smartphones, medical devices, waterpurifiers, etc.) – every single product that touches our life comprises of mineral resources.India is always regarded as a resource rich country, being one of the topmost suppliers of xyzminerals. Should we consider the fear of resource depletion and resource security, as importantas the energy deficit challenges? The answer is, yes! Manufacturing sector needs a diverse range of minerals, and of course energy supplies, tosupport its output and meet the consumer demand. Both energy (coal, oil and natural gas) andmineral resources are unevenly dispersed among the countries, with India not self-dependent inany of them. While the energy supplies can be assured from any/few of the global sources tomeet the manufacturing demand, in case of minerals, even a simple of the product manufacturingmay require supplies from multiple countries (friends, enemies, and frenemies) aside of domesticresources. Disruption in even a single flow chain among many may cause a crucial bottleneck tothe overall output. Hence, to an investor, assured supply of the entire range of minerals(irrespective of the quantity going in) is inevitable and pre-requisite before setting up themanufacturing unit. India may be endowed with significantly large deposits for many of theminerals, but the geological complexity with the mining operations, social and environmentalchallenges, techno-economic viability may hinder the extraction or exploration at affordableprice. Now, one can understand, it?s not only the mineral richness that matter, extent of diversityand sound capacity to exploit turns the fortune.In the era of global competition, one who offers lowest cost and ample supplies of raw material(here, minerals), stays in the business. As we mentioned earlier, “Indian manufacturing growthhas been settled into a low-level equilibrium over the past two decades”, trapped into the labourand resource intensive sectors only. No doubt, India has always enjoyed a competitive edge overothers in low wage manpower. However, overall competitiveness starts to fade with increasingenergy and material cost. This is also a big reason, that India has not seen a big transition, awayfrom labour intensive manufacturing, and towards a high value, energy and technology intensivesectors. Recently Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd.(BALCO) announced to shut down their aluminiumrolling business in Chattisgarh(direct and indirect loss of 1000 jobs), facing competition fromlow cost finished imports. Even though India has abundant reserves of bauxite (world?s 12thlargest reserve, sixth largest production), it is unable to satisfy the downstream demand at parwith the global prices. Same is largely true with the other base metals (Iron ore for Steel) andindustrial minerals (titanium, rare-earths, etc.). The demand for a diverse set of products rises with the advancement of the economicdevelopment. Consequently, either the manufacturing sector responds to the changing demandsthrough effective structural changes; or else the dependency of imports rises, as in case of India.Looking back into the past, starting the year 2004-05, India has seen a negative trade balance(excluding mineral fuels and petroleum products), owing to an exponential rise in imports ofmachinery, apparatus and electronic & Electrical Equipment. Alongside we can see a continuousdecline in the industrial productivity rate, settling the manufacturing share of GDP at constantlevel.In most cases, the outset of manufacturing complexities starts with unavailability of rawmaterial at affordable prices. Uncompetitive metal production leads to higher share ofintermediates imports by the other domestic manufacturing streams (such as auto parts, steelsheets, alloy materials, etc.), and thus, low value addition from the entire life cycle of a mineral.While we boast about our mineral wealth at global stage, the real issue is we haven?t explored amajor portion of this mineral wealth to legitimize its use, whereas advanced economies arerecovering the minerals even from the by-product waste of the primary minerals. As perCEEW?s estimates, at the current extraction rate – if we do consider that total reserve will beproved economically viable and socially accepted for mining – we will end up exhausting thedomestic reserves of certain major minerals or will always be import dependent for many, if exploration and by-product recovery continues to be neglected. We assume a future scenario,where Indian manufacturing sector will exhibit a growth trajectory responded by othereconomies with their rise in income levels in the past. By 2030, we would be ending upimporting more than half of the total demand for Iron, Magnesium and Limestone. Additionally,metals like Zinc & Chromium will have a risk of complete exhaustion (again, in the lack offurther exploration), exposing the metals industry to the international geo-politics of mineralsupplies. While the supply risk for base metals is not so high (thanks to ample global supplies,with wide geological spread), the concerns are high for up-in-demand minerals from the modernday technology products, which are relatively less abundant and difficult to process. Most ofthese metals are extracted as a by-product of the base metal processing of Aluminum, Copperand Zinc etc. Most of the efforts exhibited by Indian agencies (public and private) have failed atthe pilot levels (such as one for Gallium & Molybdenum), and never got into the commercialproduction. Metals like Indium (recovered as a by-product of zinc), which is indispensable for allthe display systems applications like LED/OLED screens, does not have any substitutes until anymajor technical breakthrough takes place, which makes recycling and by-product recovery,crucial for the long term. The case of Indium, having a demand from a booming market oflimitless technology products and finite reserves predicted to sustain for less than 14 years;countries are increasingly investing on techno-economical extraction from e-wastes, where Indiahas an untouched 4% of total global reserves . This is a lost opportunity, as Indian companies(mainly Hindustan Zinc Limited) were never able to succeed in a cost effective recovery.Similarly, While China is famous for its rare earth (REEs) supply dominance, India isinfamously known for its untouched monazite reserves (source of REEs) found in the beachsands. REEs are essential for the major renewable energy applications, along with all the modern "