India, June 3 -- India's fast-growing electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage sectors offer a tremendous opportunity: transforming battery waste into a strategic resource to reduce dependence on imported critical minerals. Despite having a vast domestic market, India still heavily relies on imports-especially from China-for key battery materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. As demand for these metals surges toward 2030, India stands at a crucial crossroads to build a robust recycling ecosystem aligned with the National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM), positioning itself for long-term energy security and sovereignty.

Critical minerals are essential to modern technologies-from EVs and smartphones to renewable energy and defence syst...