The Electric Vehicle industry just got lucky! Lithium reserves were found in Mandya, a city in Karnataka just 100kms from Bengaluru. The researchers from a unit of India’s Atomic Energy Commission called Atomic Minerals Directorate discovered an estimated 14,100 tonnes of lithium reserves when they inspected land patches in Mandya. A paper will be published soon regarding this in the upcoming issue of journal Current Science.
Lithium is a light metal that is essential to build batteries that power electric vehicles. An expert on battery technologies and Emeritus Professor at Indian Institute of Science, Mr. N Munichandraiah said in findings report that if we compare 14,100 tonnes of lithium to other reserves in Chile (8.6 million), Australia (2.8 million), Argentina (2.8 million) or Portugal (60,000), this would not be as large.
India currently imports all of its lithium requirements and with this development, there might be an expected change. The import of lithium batteries has increased to $1.2 billion in 2019 from $384 million in FY17. As per experts, lithium is crucial for the energy needs of the country and so far there has been no finding of a reserve.
The Narendra Modi government has already expressed its push towards a cleaner and sustainable mode of transport with electric vehicles. With this reserve, exploring the possibility of manufacturing batteries used in EVs comes to the surface.