Critical minerals and rare earths

Prelims and Mains

Waste that is already dug up, ground and stacked has had the expensive part of mining done to it. Recovering critical materials from it supplements primary mining and cuts the waste burden at the same time.

• Two indigenous pilot plants in Odisha, built by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT) with National Aluminium Company support, were set to recover rare earths from industrial waste.
• The first of its kind plant at Bhubaneswar takes coal fly ash, yielding alumina, calcium silicate, quartz and a residue rich in rare earths including scandium.
• The second works on red mud, for ferro-titanium and iron alongside rare earths.

See also: Urban mining

Prelims

The sands of India's southern coast carry monazite, the mineral that holds both thorium and rare earths. That double content is why it is handled as a strategic mineral and not a commercial one.

• Exports of monazite go only through IREL (India) Limited.
• The monazite threshold has been 0.00 per cent of total heavy minerals since 2019, so every beach sand mineral deposit sits with government companies.

Background reading: PIB, 12 Aug 2026: Non-power uses of atomic energy: isotopes, crops, rare earths (opens in a new tab)