A resource-rich country, India has a wide variety of mineral deposits across its geographical expanse. It ranks amongst the countries that are rich in iron ore and bauxite reserves, and has enough of these reserves to meet both domestic and export demand. In terms of world-proven coal and lignite reserves, India ranks after the US, Russia, Australia and China. Copper is the third most used industrial metal after steel and aluminium in terms of quantities consumed. India has limited reserves of copper ore, accounting for only 2 per cent of the global reserve base.
The production of iron ore saw a steep hike of 19 per cent in 2019-20, after it had flattened out during the preceding two years. During 2019-20, iron ore production stood at 246.08 mt. State-wise, more than half of the production was from Odisha, followed by Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Jharkhand. Together, production from these states accounted for 97 per cent of the total national iron ore output. The remaining 3 per cent of production came from states such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
The production of bauxite, at 21.82 mt during 2019-20, registered a decrease of 7.9 per cent as compared to the preceding year. Overall growth in bauxite production has been quite sluggish due to the prevailing pricing structure, making it much more expensive than imported bauxite. This has led to low capacity utilisation at the existing mines and slow auctioning of new blocks. Odisha, with a 71 per cent contribution, is the leading producer of bauxite.
After a continuous fall during 2016-17 and 2017-18, copper ore production witnessed an uptick in 2018-19 but dropped again, by 13 per cent, in 2019-20 to reach 3.95 mt. The entire copper ore in India is produced by Hindustan Copper Limited. Copper concentrate production dropped from 142,000 tonnes in 2018-19 to 124,000 tonnes in 2019-20, a decline of 13 per cent. Overall, copper concentrate production grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3 per cent from 2014-15 till 2019-20.
The production of lead and zinc increased by around 5.2 per cent, from 13.75 mt in 2018-19 to 14.47 mt in 2019-20. During the six-year period from 2014-15 to 2019-20, lead and zinc ore production in the country observed a CAGR of 9.1 per cent. The production of lead and zinc concentrates witnessed a marginal year-on-year decline of 2 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.
Lignite production fluctuated and reduced from 48.3 mt to 42.1 mt, witnessing a negative growth of 3 per cent. There was a year-on-year decline of 5 per cent in lignite production during 2019-20. State-wise, Tamil Nadu was the largest producer of lignite with an output of 23.04 mt.
The all-India production of coal during 2019-20 was 730.87 mt, with a positive growth of 0.3 per cent. Coal production by Coal India Limited during 2019-20 stood at 602.15 mt, with a negative growth of 0.78 per cent.
The onset of Covid-19 has had implications on the mining industry and impacted production. Minerals that are traded have also suffered owing to the disruption in global supply chains. However, mining companies have shown remarkable resilience and have continued mining operations to the extent possible, overall showing reasonable production trends.