By DC Correspondent
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Hyderabad: The National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) will not only help the country in achieving self-reliance in exploration and production of these vital minerals, but will also bring thousands of crores of rupees in investments, and this sector will provide direct and indirect employment to 70,000 youth, Union minister for coal and mines G. Kishan Reddy said on Tuesday.Kishan Reddy, speaking at a seminar on NCMM and its Centres of Excellence where he also handed out exploration licences to companies, said the Mission focuses on importance of indigenous knowledge in the wake of difficulties in the supply of products due to recent restrictions on exports, and international political crises. “Under the NCMM, 4 IITs and 3 research laboratories have already been established as Centres of Excellence. Critical minerals will play an important role in making India a self-reliant country by 2047 and become the third largest economy in the world,” he said. By 2030, the demand for EV batteries and renewable energy technology will increase threefold, which in turn requires more of the critical minerals, he added.Kishan Reddy said the Centre made several amendments in the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act which have paved way for mining of deep-seated minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel. “Funds can be raised for mining activities abroad through the National Exploration Trust. In the last 10 years, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, many reforms were brought in the mining sector, and we have broken many records.For the first time in history, the target of 1 billion tonnes in coal production and transportation has been achieved. We are now focusing on underground coal gasification,” he said. Khanij Bidesh India Limited, a central public sector enterprise (KABIL) has already acquired lithium blocks in Argentina and started extraction. There are also talks of acquiring mines in Zambia and Chile. India is also signing MoUs with countries like Japan and Peru to share knowledge on extraction of critical minerals, Kishan Reddy said.
