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India's rare-earth output comes from monazite, a thorium-bearing mineral found mainly in coastal beach sands. That thorium puts monazite under the Department of Atomic Energy. Rare-earth minerals that contain no uranium or thorium are handled differently, with the central government auctioning mining leases for them.

State-owned IREL mines heavy-mineral sands in Odisha, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and cracks the monazite into mixed rare-earth chloride in Odisha. Its plant at Aluva in Kerala refines that chloride into separated oxides, neodymium-praseodymium among them. India therefore runs a domestic chain from beach sand to separated oxide.

Alloy and magnet making at industrial scale has been the missing link. The government has told Parliament that such facilities did not exist, and India has met most of its magnet demand with imports, the bulk of them from China.

Monazite is also rich in light rare earths, and the government says heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium are not present in economically extractable quantities. Hard-rock deposits in Gujarat and Rajasthan hold further resources outside the beach sands.

The open question is whether state control of the monazite feedstock can supply the magnet makers that government incentives are meant to create.

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