ICC Forum Highlights Critical Minerals Strategy to Strengthen India’s Metals and Steel Supply Chain
The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) hosted the 15th edition of its India Minerals & Metals Forum (Ferrous & Non-Ferrous) in New Delhi, bringing together senior government officials, policymakers, mining companies, steel manufacturers, and industry experts to discuss strategies for building a secure and self-reliant critical minerals supply chain as India’s metals sector prepares for significant expansion.
Held under the theme “Minerals to Metals,” the forum focused on strengthening domestic capabilities in critical minerals, improving recycling and resource recovery, advancing sustainable mining, and enhancing global competitiveness across the steel and non-ferrous metals value chain.
Delivering the opening address, Dr. Pankaj Satija, Chairperson of ICC’s National Expert Committee on Minerals & Metals, highlighted the strategic importance of critical minerals in supporting India’s clean energy transition, electric mobility, defence, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing sectors. He noted that India’s list of critical minerals has expanded to 31 with the recent inclusion of coking coal and said the government is simultaneously accelerating domestic exploration, promoting recycling of electronic waste, and encouraging recovery of valuable minerals from industrial waste streams such as steel slag and fly ash.
Dr. Satija said more than 500 mineral blocks are currently under exploration, while international collaborations with countries including the United States and Argentina are helping diversify India’s supply chain. He added that recent initiatives such as the India-US FORGE and PACT partnerships have strengthened cooperation in areas including lithium refining, cathode materials, recycling, synthetic graphite production, and critical mineral processing.
Speaking on policy priorities, Anupam Lahiri, Programme Director at NITI Aayog, said recycling represents India’s most immediate opportunity to reduce dependence on imported critical minerals, as domestic exploration will require several years before commercially viable reserves become available. He emphasized that electronic waste, battery waste, mine overburden, and tailings can become valuable secondary sources of critical minerals if supported by favourable policies, commercial incentives, and advanced recovery technologies.
Lahiri also revealed that NITI Aayog has constituted a technical committee involving Coal India, Singareni Collieries, Jindal Steel, and Adani to evaluate the recovery potential of critical minerals from mine overburden and tailings. He cited Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s successful recovery of rare earth elements from fly ash as a notable example of the country’s growing waste-to-resource capabilities. However, he acknowledged that policy issues related to royalties on recovered minerals remain unresolved. He further noted that Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL) continues to pursue overseas mineral assets in Australia, Argentina, and the United States, although local processing requirements in several countries present challenges for downstream value addition in India.
Linking critical minerals to India’s long-term industrial ambitions, Sushanta Kumar Mishra, Executive In-charge of Tata Steel’s Ferro Alloys & Minerals Division, said the country’s steel production is targeted to increase from the current 150–160 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes by 2030 and 500 million tonnes by 2047. He said Tata Steel plans to expand its production capacity from around 24 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes while increasing the share of value-added ferroalloy products to nearly 80 percent of its portfolio. Mishra also highlighted ongoing research at Tata Steel’s Sukinda Valley operations on recovering nickel and cobalt from chromite overburden, where successful nickel pig iron trials have already been completed. He called for greater regulatory clarity regarding the classification of minerals recovered from mine overburden.
Providing an industry perspective, Tushar Chakraborty, Executive Director at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, stressed that India’s minerals and metals sector must focus not only on expanding production capacity but also on improving productivity, cost competitiveness, and supply chain resilience. He said achieving India’s ambitious steel and metals targets for 2030 and 2047 would require secure access to raw materials and a resilient ecosystem capable of supporting long-term industrial growth.
Addressing the role of technology in mineral processing, N. D. Rao, President-Projects at Atha & Amalgam Steel Group, explained how variations in iron ore quality significantly influence processing efficiency and production costs. He highlighted emerging reduction roasting technologies capable of upgrading lower-grade iron ores into higher-quality magnetite and referred to successful research initiatives involving bioleaching, silver recovery from zinc processing waste, and lithium extraction from electronic waste as examples of India’s growing “waste-to-wealth” potential. He also observed that the country’s rare earth resources contained in beach sands remain underutilised due to limited private sector participation.
Speaking on sustainable mining, R. R. Sathpathy, Executive Director-Exploration and Beneficiation at Lloyds Metals & Energy, outlined the transformation of the company’s Surjagad iron ore mine in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district into a fully electrified mining operation. He said the deployment of battery-powered mining equipment has reduced carbon emissions from approximately 11–12 kilograms per tonne to around 3–3.5 kilograms per tonne, with emissions expected to decline further after commissioning a planned 110 MW solar-wind hybrid power project later this year.
Sathpathy also highlighted the company’s ongoing 45-million-tonne beneficiation plant, being developed in three phases, with the first 15-million-tonne module expected to become operational by September 2027. He noted that beneficiation technologies have significantly expanded the mine’s economically recoverable resource base while contributing to local socio-economic development through employment generation, education, and healthcare infrastructure.
The discussions at the forum underscored the growing consensus that India’s ambitions in steel manufacturing, clean energy, and advanced industries will increasingly depend on securing reliable access to critical minerals through a combination of domestic exploration, technological innovation, recycling, responsible mining, and international partnerships.