Concerned over rising illegal mining of beach sand minerals such as garnet, leucoxene, sillimanite, illeminite, rutile and zircon that occur along the vast coastline of India, the government has decided to canalise its exports through public sector firm Indian Rare Earths Ltd.

The move is being seen as yet another attempt to choke the operations of private sector miners that were already operating in the area with a plethora of restrictions considering that several of the beach sand minerals occur along with monazite (which contains thorium), a radioactive mineral.

“Canalising means putting quantitative restrictions on exports. Additional checks could choke beach sand mining activities and rob the country of developing a sector where it has one the largest reserves globally,” said a private sector miner with operations in beach sand mining.

Export of rare earth compounds classified as beach sand minerals, permitted anywhere in the export policy, will now be regulated, a government notification said. Most of these strategic minerals have an important role to play in the development of critical technology applications relevant to India’s energy security.
It also has vast defence applications as titanium, derived from leucoxene, is used in making components for fighter aircraft, missiles and civilian launch vehicles by the aerospace industry and for use in nuclear power reactors. But due to restrictions, domestic production of these minerals is limited and they are still largely imported.

The government opened beach sand mining for the private sector a couple of years back but too many restrictions on production has prevented the industry to grow in size. With another level of checks now, it would be interesting to see whether India is able to exploit these imports minerals and reduce its import dependency.

Restrictions have also increased illegal mining activities with unchecked consignments often getting exported and money getting routed to tax havens. Tamil Nadu put a ban on beach sand mineral exports a few years back to check this menace. The fresh set of regulations is expected to affect mining activities along the coast of Kerala, Odisha and Tamil Nadu where beach sand minerals are available in abundance.

It would also impact production of titanium in the country. With identified reserves of over 400 mt of ilmenite ore – which yields titanium dioxide and titanium metals for metals and alloys – on the sandy beaches, India has the largest deposit of this precious mineral globally.

In yet another decision, the government has also imposed restrictions on import of bio-fuels including ethyl alcohol and other denatured spirits, bio-diesel, petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals other than crude, through an amendment in import policy.

The import of these items, which was free earlier, will now only be allowed for non-fuel purposes on actual user basis.