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One way of India's progress is also under the ground!!!
Under the ground, there is a huge reserve of minerals. These minerals play an important role in making our country industrially strong and accelerating economic development. In the recently presented budget, the government has removed the import duty on certain mineral metals like lithium.
This will greatly benefit companies manufacturing electric vehicles. They will get cheap raw materials and will be able to make more vehicles. Also, the parts of these vehicles will start being made in the country itself, which will also create new jobs.
The most important and expensive thing in these vehicles is the lithium-ion battery. If we are able to make such batteries which are of good technology, are cheap and save more electricity, then electric vehicles can become common very soon. The government plans to make 30% of the vehicles electric by 2030. But the problem is that the countries where these minerals are found are very few. China has 79% of the world's graphite, Congo has 70% cobalt, china has 60% rare earth elements and australia has 55% lithium. The biggest thing is that china does most of the work of cleaning and preparing these minerals. It cleans and prepares 67% lithium, 73% cobalt, 70% graphite and 95% manganese.
India's increasing dependence on lithium
India needs a lot of lithium and other special minerals. Last year in 2023, india imported lithium worth Rs 23,171 crore, whereas last year it was only Rs 13 thousand crore. That is, its demand is increasing very fast. Today, some special types of minerals are needed to make new things around the world. These minerals are the ones that are helping our world run on electricity. If these minerals are not there, then we cannot even dream of a world running on electricity. That is why governments of big countries are very cautious about these minerals.