The Union Cabinet has approved a ₹1,500 crore incentive plan for critical and rare earth minerals. This is a big step toward making India’s supply chain for these important commodities stronger. The National Critical Mineral Mission’s six-year plan is meant to help India improve its ability to recycle and produce these important resources.
The plan is projected to help build up a recycling capacity of at least 270,000 tons per year, which would then lead to the production of about 40,000 tons of important minerals every year. This project is expected to bring in an astonishing ₹8,000 crore in investment and create about 70,000 employment, both directly and indirectly.
Put your money into recycling and investment.
The incentive scheme will focus on the recycling value chain that is directly involved in getting the important minerals out of the ground, not merely making “black mass,” which is a processed junk material. It will talk about how to recycle important minerals including lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements from a range of sources. E-waste, scrap from lithium-ion batteries, and other things like catalytic converters from cars that are no longer in use can all be used as feedstocks.
The government has set aside one-third of the overall cost of the program for new and smaller recyclers, so the advantages won’t just accrue to big, well-known enterprises. The plan will cover investments in both new units and the growth or diversification of units that are already in place.
Structure of Incentives
There are two reasons for the incentives:
Companies will get a 20% subsidy on capital expenditures, which will pay for new plant, machinery, and equipment. This subsidy is just for units that start making things within a certain amount of time. After that, the subsidy goes down.
Operational Expenditure Subsidy: This incentive will be given to a company based on how much more they sell than they did in a base year. Companies will obtain 40% of the eligible operating expenditure subsidy in the second year and the other 60% in the fifth year, as long as they reach certain sales goals.
The overall incentives have limits. Large businesses can get up to ₹50 crore, while small businesses can only get ₹25 crore. The operational expenditure subsidy part is also limited to a maximum of ₹10 crore for big businesses and ₹5 crore for small businesses.