Sustainable bauxite mining required in India to meet estimated aluminium demand growth to 12 MTPA by 2030

Increasing bauxite imports in India has caused an estimated forex loss of over $400 million in the last five years and missed opportunities to generate mass scale employment, a recent report found. This is despite India having the world’s fifth-largest coal and bauxite reserves, which are the two important raw materials for aluminium production.

India is also the world's third-largest producer and consumer of aluminium with domestic demand to expectedly expand from 4 million tonnes per annum to 12 million tonnes per annum by 2030. Keeping this estimated aluminium demand growth in mind, a multi-fold increase in bauxite production from current levels of 20-22 million tonnes to 72 million tonnes per year is needed to meet the domestic requirement.

Experts suggest bauxite mining creates livelihood opportunities in certain regions that otherwise have limited potential for other economic activities. A single bauxite mine has the potential of generating over 10,000 livelihood opportunities and contributing INR 5,000 crore to the State revenue over the life of the mine.

“It is a travesty that with even with such abundant bauxite reserves and available aluminium capacity for value addition in the country, no Metallurgical Grade Bauxite Mines have been successfully auctioned in the last 5 years since inception of MMDR Act 2015 forcing the domestic industry to import. The eco-friendly and sustainable mining methods lead to economic, social and environmental harmony. Thus, utilizing India’s natural bauxite dividend should be a policy priority to realise the vision of an AatmaNirbhar Bharat,” said Ansuman Das, Former Chairman and Managing Director, NALCO and metals and mining expert.

Given the present scenario, the country’s 3.8 billion tonnes bauxite reserves should be best utilised for becoming self-reliant.

Today, the mining commitment includes extensive re-greening of the mined land and proactive participation in the socio-economic development of communities around. Also, there are ample opportunities to implement technology-driven scientific mining techniques in bauxite mining in India as most of the reserves are located on a single plateau making bulk open cast mining possible.

Aluminium is one of the most indispensable raw materials in defence, transportation, electricity, aerospace, automobile, consumer durables and many more sectors. With huge investments of over INR 1.5 lakh crore, the aluminium industry creates over 20 lakh direct and indirect jobs and develops over 4,000 SMEs ((Small and Medium Enterprises) in the downstream sector.