Strengthening Initiatives for a Robust Rare Earth Industry Ecosystem in India: Significance and Way Forward

Abstract

The rare earth (RE) supply chains are going to face bottlenecks and possible disruptions owing to the volatile geopolitical environment in some of the critical and nodal countries and regions. Therefore, it is important to render resilience to the global rare earth supply chain network by augmenting an alternate supply source, primarily through the end-of-life (EoL) product recycling. Establishing a comprehensive manufacturing ecosystem capable of sourcing raw materials uninterruptedly would help manufacture the finished products at globally competitive prices. This could unveil India’s potential to build a well-planned white goods production ecosystem while creating strategic capability through partnerships and building capacity by generating large-scale job opportunities. Various case studies emphasize the need for strategy-focused and demand-driven bottom-up assessments to firm up the national requirements so that a holistic national plan can be formulated around the core philosophy of resource adequacy and resource security