The Way Forward

The concentration of rare earth element in any geological environment alone does not make it suitable for commercial mining. The ease of exploitation is commonly dictated by favourable geological setting, ore grade, tonnage, existing processing technology, costs and attendant environmental concerns including local people. These aspects need to be assessed properly before commencing exploitation. Apart from strengthening downstream sector, upstream sector also need to be developed for identifying and quantifying additional natural resources to sustain “Rare Earth Industry Chain”. This endeavour may also involve innovative groups at the interface of information technology and the minerals, metals and materials engineering domains (cf. Pradip et al. 2019). Assessment of effective recovery of REE and associated metals from industrial wastes and mine dumps, comprising ‘Technospheric mining’, should continue to receive focussed attention. The indigenous manufacturing of intermediate products need to be augmented with matching progressive growth of technological advancements. Industrially speaking, promotion of the “Rare Earth Industry” should be an integral part of the present programme of “Make in India” (Singh 2019). In this regard, a beginning can be made by the AMD-IREL-BARC-NFC-DMRL-ARCI combine. To achieve this goal, several of the industrial partners like Aluminium extraction, Thermal Power Plants, Fertiliser Plants, different Mining Agencies and Steel Plants can also be involved as partners. Also, India can promote its ties with countries, as has been established now with Japan for improving its domain knowledge and new technologies for both upstream and downstream processes of the “Indian Rare Earth Industry”. Significantly, according to REAI News (2020), “2020 looks to be a pivotal year for rare earths”.