New Delhi, June 12 -- As Indian manufacturers are scrambling to deal with supply-chain disruptions caused by China's restrictive policies on the export of rare earth metals, in many of which it has a near monopoly, experts are pointing to an early warning of this - in a 2012 strategy paper prepared by a steering committee headed by the then mines secretary Vishwapati Trivedi after a similar crisis caused after Beijing restricted supplies of the critical materials that are needed in the auto, space and clean energy industries.

Back then, they added, India felt the heat of Chinese squeeze and on August 9, 2011, the government set up an 11-member steering committee to develop a strategy paper on status and availability of rare earth element...