Government Set To Roll Out Rs 7,350-Crore Plan To Boost Rare Earth Magnet Production: Report
The plan will likely be called the Scheme to Promote Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnet Manufacturing in India, Business Standard reported.
India is in the final stage of launching Rs 7,350 crore plan to boost production of sintered rare earth magnets, according to a report by Business Standard. The development happened amid the recent supply crisis after China restricted imports of rare earth minerals early this year.
The plan will likely be called the Scheme to Promote Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnet Manufacturing in India, the report said, adding that the plan aims to establish an indigenous manufacturing ecosystem with an annual production capacity up to 6,000 tonnes.
Sintering is a process of forming solid magnets from powdered materials.
The scheme is expected to run for seven years, Business Standard reported, citing official documents. It will offer incentives to facilities equipped to execute final three stages of production — transforming rare earth oxides into metals, then into alloys, and finally shaping the alloys into magnets.
At present, India lacks the capability and infrastructure to perform this critical steps.
Rare earth permanent magnet production includes mining, beneficiation, processing, extraction, refining to earth oxide, and conversion to metal and alloy, and magnet manufacturing.
The initiative aims to create a domestic value chain, converting neodymium-praseodymium oxides—a type of rare-earth material—into neodymium-iron-boron magnets, which are strong permanent magnets used in motors and electronics. These are critical to sectors such as automobiles, electronics, wind energy, and defence.
Under the proposed scheme, the Government will support establishments to create five integrated rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing units, each with a capacity up to 1,200 tonnes annually. Applicants can bid for capacities ranging from 6,00 to 1,200 per year, in increments of 100 tonnes.
Selected companies will get two types of financial support under the proposed scheme—a sales-based incentive for sintered neodymium-iron-boron magnet output, and a capital subsidy to help in setting up integrated manufacturing units in India.
Currently, India relies almost entirely on imports of rare-earth permanent magnets to meet its requirements. According to the government estimate, India requires approximately 4,010 tonnes of these critical components per year. By 2030, the requirement is expected to rise to 8,220 tonnes per annum.
