Can space exploration and asteroid mining help India beat the rare earth crisis? Deloitte’s Romal Shetty thinks so

Space could offer answers to India’s rare earth magnet crisis, which recently came as a big jolt to the country’s automobile and electronics sectors. Deloitte South Asia CEO Romal Shetty has called for a three-pronged strategy, including asteroid mining, which India must follow to achieve self-reliance in the rare earth magnet sector — the other two being domestic exploration and global alliances with countries that have rich reserves of such minerals.

“Space mining is 100% feasible for us. Clearly, space — or, more specifically, asteroid mining — is an option. Space is an area in which India is pretty much among the top, preeminent countries in the world. We are not catching up with the rest. We are among the top few there. It is definitely an area for energy and other use cases,” Shetty said during an interaction with Fortune India.

“Space is a big space for India. Along with ISRO, tech start-ups, too, are helping a lot. It is one of the key frontiers for India and something that India should really focus on (for solving the rare earth magnet issue),” Shetty said.

Shetty also emphasised the need to give a significant boost to domestic exploration of rare earth magnets and to form strategic alliances for this purpose.

“Within the country, there are two areas on which we need to focus. Firstly, we need to do explorations. India has different mining resources in various parts of the country. We must locate such reserves in the country. I think geological exploration is very important to ensure we have a certain sense of self-reliance,” Shetty said.

“Secondly, the majority of rare earth magnet processing is done in China today. But China is not the only nation having rare earth reserves. Rare earth minerals are available in many African countries. So, we need to form alliances — for example, with the Global South or BRICS. Alliances are critical to how we actually safeguard our requirements,” Shetty added.

Shetty, however, pointed out that while forming strategic alliances for rare earth, India must ensure that, given the geopolitical challenges, dependence on any single country in the world — or full dependence on any country — may not be the right strategy.

“We need to diversify it,” he said.