An expert roundtable on ‘Strengthening the Minerals Ecosystem in India: Regulatory and Policy Options’, hosted in New Delhi on 10 March 2026, brought into focus a critical strategic insight: India’s minerals debate cannot be limited to questions of resource availability alone.

Bringing together 15 experts from policy, industry, practice, research, and academia, the cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary discussion highlighted the deeper challenge of value-chain capability.

While India has substantial mineral potential, large parts of its geology remain under-explored, and domestic value addition across the chain remains uneven. At the same time, as the country scales electric mobility, renewable energy, electronics manufacturing and defence production, import dependence persists across several critical minerals and processed material inputs.

The roundtable underscored that minerals are foundational to modern industrial capability—shaping batteries, semiconductors, energy infrastructure and advanced manufacturing systems. The strategic task before India, therefore, is not only to extract more, but to build an integrated ecosystem spanning exploration, extraction, processing, refining, advanced manufacturing and recycling.