- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
India has traditionally banked in Australia and Argentina for importing lithium but now things are set to change. The country’s government on Thursday (9) announced discovery of 5.9 million tonnes of the rare mineral crucial for making electric vehicles (EVs) in the northern Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Lithium is a significant component in rechargeable batteries that run several gadgets, including smartphones and laptops, besides EVs.
India’s mines ministry said that the Geological Survey of India found the mineral’s reserves in the Salai-Haimana area of Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2021, deposits of lithium were found in the southern state of Karnataka, albeit in smaller quantities.
Earlier, the Indian government had said that it was looking to better its supply of rare metals required to bolster new technologies and for their sources both at home and abroad.
Vivek Bhardwaj, secretary of the mines ministry, told the Mint newspaper that the South Asian nation had been “re-orienting its exploration measures” to meet the objective.
Demand for rare metals, including lithium, has increased around the globe as nations look to adopt greener solutions to slow down climate change.
In 2023, China signed a deal worth $1 billion (£807 million) to develop the vast lithium reserves of Bolivia in South America, which are estimated at 21 million tonnes and the largest in the world.
According to the World Bank, mining of crucial minerals will need to go up by 500 per cent to meet global climate targets by 2050.
However, experts opine that the mining of lithium is not an environment-friendly process.
To extract it from underground reservoirs, many of which are found in water-scarce Argentina — a large quantity of water is used, making indigenous communities protest as they allege that such activity is exhausting natural resources and causing acute water crisis.
