BHUBANESWAR: Odisha expects a major share in the centre’s proposal for setting up rare earth corridors in four coastal states to promote mining, processing, research and manufacturing.
As announced by Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the corridors will be established in Odisha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The proposed corridor is aimed at building an end-to-end domestic value chain for critical minerals at a time when global supply is heavily concentrated in a few countries.
Odisha occupies a strategic position in India’s rare earth landscape with rare earth-bearing minerals, particularly monazite, which is a key source of light rare earth elements such as cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium, apart from thorium.
With around 3.16 million tonnes of monazite of the country’s total estimated 13.15 million tonnes, the state forms a part of the country’s eastern coastal mineral belt, which, along with the southern coast, accounts for a large share of in-situ rare earth resources. These deposits have long been identified as strategically important, especially as rare earths are indispensable for clean energy technologies, electronics, semiconductors and defence applications. India now heavily depends on imports for processed rare earths and permanent magnets, despite having sizeable geological reserves.
The announcement assumes significance as one of India’s most important rare earth processing facilities - Indian Rare Earths Ltd (IREL), a central PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy, operates its sand complex in Ganjam district. The complex includes a rare earth extraction plant that processes monazite obtained from beach sand minerals to produce mixed rare earth compounds, which serve as intermediate feedstock for further separation and refining.
IREL has already formed a joint venture company for the extraction of strategic and atomic minerals from the Krushnaprasad heavy mineral deposit in Puri district. It has also received a letter of intent from the Steel and Mines department for extracting Monazite, Zircon, Ilmenite, Rutile, Sillimanite, and Garnet, minerals vital to India’s strategic interests.
Former DGM of IREL Surya Kanta Patra said this makes Odisha one of the few states in the country with existing downstream capabilities beyond raw mineral extraction. “Developing domestic capacity anchored in states like Odisha will help reduce this dependence and strengthen supply chain security,” he said.
Semiconductor Mission 2.0
The state is also expected to significantly benefit from the proposed India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 as the Finance minister announced to expand the country’s semiconductor sector capabilities. Two semiconductor units with a combined investment of Rs 4,009 crore have already been approved for the state under ISM 1.0. The government has decided to establish a world-class electronics system design and manufacturing (ESDM) and semiconductor park in Bhubaneswar soon.