The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted a Seminar on Identifying and Securing India’s Critical Mineral Needs for the Net-Zero Transition on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, 03:30 pm – 5:00 pm IST. Attendees joined in-person at the CSEP Auditorium (6 Jose P Rizal Marg, 2nd Floor, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021) and also online via Zoom. The seminar was streamed live on YouTube.

About the event

Critical minerals refer to mineral resources, both primary and processed, which are essential inputs in the production process of an economy, and whose supplies are likely to be disrupted due to the risks of non-availability or unaffordable price spikes. A recent study by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) evaluated the criticality of minerals based on their demand and supply-side factors. It found 22 minerals, including cobalt, lithium, and phosphorous, to be the most critical for India. The Ministry of Mines released its report enumerating the first list of critical minerals for India on June 28, 2023, which included inputs from the findings of the CSEP report and identified 30 minerals critical for India. Many of these are required to meet green technologies, high-tech equipment, aviation, and national defence manufacturing needs. However, while India has a significant mineral geological potential, many minerals are not readily available domestically. Hence, India must develop a national strategy to ensure resilient critical minerals supply chains.  

Our distinguished speakers shared their thoughts on the pressing need for critical minerals to meet India’s net-zero ambitions, the assessment of critical minerals for India, and strategies that can be employed to ensure resilient access to these minerals:  

Keynote Address

Suman Bery is the Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog. He has been associated with renowned International and national think tanks, and had a long career at the World Bank as well. He was Chief Economist of Royal Dutch Shell, and also served as Director-General (Chief Executive) of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi. In his decade leading NCAER, he was at various times member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, India’s Statistical Commission, and the Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary Policy. His work has contributed to the political economy of reform, financial sector and banking reform, and energy trends and policy.

Chair

Rakesh Mohan is President Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, Professor at Yale’s School of Management, and Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process since the late 1980s, he has served in senior roles including as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary, Economic Affairs and Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance.

Moderator 

Rajesh Chadha is a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He was formerly a Professor & Research Director at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and former to that, an Associate Professor of Economics at Hindu College, University of Delhi. He has worked extensively on regional and multilateral issues of international trade. His other areas of interest include non-fuel minerals & mining in India, foreign direct investment and agricultural markets. He has provided research support to the Indian Government on multiple projects. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Michigan, Melbourne, and Monash and Visiting Faculty at many prestigious academic and research institutes in India. He was nominated as GTAP Research Fellow (2004-2007) by the Global Trade Analysis Project, Purdue University, USA. He received his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. 

Panelists 

Ranjan Mathai is an Indian civil servant of the Indian Foreign Service cadre. He has served in various Indian Embassies: Vienna, Colombo, Washington, Tehran, and Brussels. He has been the Ambassador to France, Israel, and Qatar, before serving as the Indian Foreign Secretary from August 2011 to July 2013. He also served as the High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom from December 2013 to October 2015. He has been speaking about and writing on the importance of mining to India’s national security and economy for the past several years.

Veena Kumari Dermal is the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Mines, belonging to the 1998 batch of the Indian Postal Service (IPoS) of the Government of India. She works as Joint Secretary with Policy & Legislative Division in the Ministry of Mines, Government of India. She joined as a Director of the Ministry of Mines in 2017 and got promoted as Joint Secretary in 2020. She was pivotal in making Amendments to MMDR Act in 2020 & 2021 and the subordinate legislations to the Act. She has a deep understanding of the mineral policy in India. She is the Government’s Nominee Director of National Aluminium Company Ltd., Bharat Gold Mines Ltd., Hindustan Zinc Ltd. and KABIL. She is currently looking at Mineral Policy, Legislation, International Cooperation and Strategic Minerals.

Pankaj Satija works as the Managing Director of Tata Steel Mining Limited. He is a graduate mining engineer from IIT(ISM), Dhanbad, with PGDBM from XLRI. He is a certified coach from Erickson Coaching International. He has been on the task force for SDF for the Mining Industry by the Ministry of Mines. Under his leadership, Sukinda mine of Tata Steel became the first in the country where a pilot launch of SDF was done in 2016, Noamundi became the first mine to launch a pilot for Drone Application in Mine Monitoring in 2017, and TSML was bestowed with the Responsible Chromium Award from the ICDA. He received the National Geoscience Award 2022, FIMI Gem Granite Sustainability Award 2014-15, and Bala Gulshan Tandon Excellence Award from FIMI for 2016-17.  He is the Co-chair of the FICCI mining committee and Co-chairperson of the ICC National Expert Committee on Mining and Metals.

Presenters

Ganesh Sivamani is a Research Associate at CSEP

Karthik Bansal is a Research Analyst at CSEP

Concluding Remarks:

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has been leading climate change and sustainability research at CSEP, and has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of the Journal of Emerging Market Finance and worked at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.

Please contact Ganesh Sivamani at GSivamani@csep.org for event-related inquiries or Trishna Wahengbam at TWahengbam@csep.org for media inquiries.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.