Best quality lithium at the Salal-Haimana area of Reasi district on Friday were found for the first time in
Jammu and Kashmir arising hope among the villagers for bright future.
The Union government said 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves were found, for the first time in the country, in Jammu and Kashmir.
Rajendra Singh, a panchayat member, said, “The survey team after conducting the exercise over almost two years. They used to bring the entire machinery (for survey) by road. The team identified almost 100 points where Lithium can be found. The survey report was sent to Lucknow and finally, the good news was shared with the people here. The locals have welcomed the news as it would offer great employment opportunities for them.”
“It is the second biggest employment opportunity for the Reasi district. The first was when the NHPC project was developed. This opportunity is equally significant, I must say. Unemployment will end to a large extent,” he added.
Another local from Salal said, “I watched in disbelief as television channels played news of the lithium discovery in the Salal region. We are delighted and extremely lucky. This is huge. The people of Salal have a bright future now. I am confident that unemployment in the region will be reduced.”
“The lithium was earlier imported from different countries but now Salal will provide it. We wish to thank PM Modi and the central government for this. We are very proud,” the local added.
Lithium, a shiny gray metal, is also called ‘white gold’ because it is a key component of electric batteries.
Experts say India’s lithium find is good news. If more assessments reveal that the lithium resources can indeed be tapped into and used, it will prove a shot in the arm for manufacturing electric vehicles in the country. However, the development of these reserves will need to be conducted sustainably – both in terms of the environment and equity – scientists added.
‘White gold’ found
On February 9, India’s Ministry of Mines announced that the Geological Survey of India, which also assesses India’s mineral resources, located 5.9 million tonnes of lithium resources – a first in the country – in the Salal-Haimana area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi district. The Ministry of Mines handed over a report on this, along with 15 other resource-bearing geological reports and 35 geological memoranda, to the respective state governments during the 62nd Central Geological Programming Board meeting held on the day.
“For the first time, lithium reserves have been discovered and that too in Jammu and Kashmir,” the news agency PTI quoted mines secretary VivekBharadwaj as saying.
It’s a big deal.
Firstly, the soft, shiny gray metal is an extremely important one in today’s world. It is used, among other things, to build the batteries that electric vehicles cannot do without. Hence the name ‘white gold’. If India has its own sources of lithium, it would not have to rely too much on imports for its lithium needs, as it currently does. In 2020-21, India imported Rs 173 crore worth of lithium and Rs 8,811 crore worth of lithium ions. India’s lithium needs are also likely to rise, given the push for electric vehicles.
Secondly, lithium reserves are also rare. There are 98 million tonnes of lithium globally, said Rishabh Jain, senior programme lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). Now India has found 5.5% of these resources, he added.
As per one estimate, Chile – at 9.2 million tonnes – led the world in lithium reserves, followed by Australia (6.2 million tonnes). So India’s recent find of 5.9 million tonnes of lithium could catapult it into the top three countries in the world with the highest lithium reserves.
‘Inferred category’
“While this is a good development, we also need to temper expectations,” said Deepak Krishnan, associate director, WRI India.
That’s because these reserves are called “inferred resources”. These are resources for which quantity and grade can be estimated based on geological evidence, but whose geological and grade continuity cannot be verified at this stage, he clarified.
“There are a few stages of assessment before we can identify the proven reserve of Lithium in the Salal-Haimana deposit. If this ends up being substantial, it can help India reduce its import dependence for lithium in the future and help the stationary battery system and EV battery industries,” he said. “This builds on earlier announcements of lithium deposits in Karnataka, and the focus must now shift to assessing the commercial extraction potential.”
In 2021, the 1,600 tonnes of lithium ore discovered in Karnataka were also classified as being in the “inferred category”. The Department of Atomic Energy later clarified this in a press release on February 9, 2021.
“This is a preliminary estimate and requires further exploration efforts to convert the estimated resources to exploitable category with high degree of confidence level and explore the possibility of augmenting Li [lithium] resources in the area,” the release read. “Further, unless a proper technology/method is available to profitably extract lithium from its ore, the real benefit of exploration may not be there. With the data presently available with AMD, the actual economic benefits of the exploration cannot be estimated at this stage.”
While India has initiated a battery production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to set up battery cell manufacturing, it is “important to develop mineral processing and raw material processing capability to truly become atmanirbhar (self-reliant)”, commented Jain (CEEW).
The government had in May 2021 approved a PLI scheme worth Rs 18,100 crore for a period of five years to manufacture Advance Chemistry Cells (ACC) in the country. The scheme involves, among others, establishing a competitive ACC battery manufacturing set-up in the country. In June of the same year, three bidders including Reliance New Energy Limited signed the Program Agreement under the PLI.
Environment and equity
The latest lithium find is an “important development towards self-reliance in the LIB [lithium-ion battery] supply chain”, commented Parveen Kumar, senior manager, Electric Mobility, WRI India. “While this is positive news, it will also need a balanced analysis that takes into account the ecological sensitivities of the region.”
The impacts of lithium mining on the environment and ecology are many. These include water, soil and air pollution. The process of extracting lithium from its ore is also extremely water-intensive; as per one estimate, it takes approximately 2.2 million litres of water to produce one ton of lithium. And the demand for lithium is only increasing. Globally, the demand for lithium is expected to increase by 488% by 2050, as compared to 2018, said Kumar.
Another issue is equity.
Commenting on the latest lithium find in Jammu and Kashmir, Krishnan said that in this era of resource nationalisation, all eyes would be on India – which currently holds the presidency of the G20, an intergovernmental forum for international economic cooperation – “to see if there are globally beneficial proposals regarding equitable access to the benefits derived from these critical minerals that the country will put forward”.
Lithium mining has caused environmental justice issues, a study that analysed the socio-environmental impacts of lithium mineral extraction in 2018 noted. It said that there has not been enough research conducted over the past four decades to address the sustainability challenges due to lithium mining and processing, especially the issue of its impacts on local communities.
Senior Democratic Azad Party leader (DAP) and former minister Jugal Kishore Sharma congratulated the people for the finding of the lithium reserve and urged the government to ensure that the local youth be given employment in the project.
“The industry for excavation of the metal should be set up in Reasi and the local people should be engaged,” the former member of legislative assembly from Reasi said.
He said there is also a need for fully exploring the lower Himalayas across Jammu and Kashmir.
