India has intensified its efforts to secure essential resources for clean energy technologies, signing 15 critical minerals agreements since January 2025. This places India among the leading nations in the global race for vital minerals, surpassing China, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union, which each secured 11 agreements. The United States remains at the forefront with 41 agreements.
The focus of these agreements is on securing supplies of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper, and rare earth elements. These materials are crucial for the production of electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, semiconductors, and electricity infrastructure. With the launch of the National Critical Mineral Mission in January 2025, India aims to reduce its dependency on foreign suppliers and boost domestic exploration, processing, manufacturing, and recycling capabilities. This mission has a government allocation of Rs 16,300 crore, with plans to attract an additional Rs 18,000 crore in investment.
India’s strategy includes undertaking 1,200 domestic exploration projects and acquiring overseas mining assets through both public and private companies. A notable partnership is between state-owned Khanij Bidesh India Ltd and Argentina’s CAMYEN, focusing on exploring five lithium blocks spanning 15,703 hectares. Additionally, India is exploring joint investment opportunities with Australia for lithium and cobalt and has enhanced cooperation with Germany and Norway.
Globally, the competition for critical minerals is intensifying, with governments increasingly entering cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding to secure mineral supplies and develop domestic processing industries. However, there are concerns about transparency, as 39 percent of these agreements lack publicly available texts.
As the demand for clean energy technologies continues to grow, India faces the challenge of moving beyond merely securing raw materials. Building strong domestic manufacturing capabilities, developing sustainable supply chains, creating employment, and strengthening industrial capacity will be vital steps in meeting future global demands.