The government will offer grants of ₹5 crore to startups and ₹10 crore to incubators in order to facilitate research and development in the mining of critical and rare earth minerals.
The grants will go into facilitating and supporting new technologies, especially those developed by small and medium enterprises.
The mines ministry will support innovation and research for a three-year period through public funds under new guidelines for promotion of research and innovation in startups and MSMEs (micro, small & medium enterprises) in mining, mineral processing, metallurgy and recycling.
This is expected to enable new age mining to adopt global best practices and employ innovative technologies developed in India.
Mint earlier reported about the government’s plan to award and institute R&D projects for critical, rare earth and deep seated minerals such as lithium, nickel, tungsten to bring out sustainable solutions involving robotics, internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
As per the new guidelines, startups showing capability, intent, and promise to produce functional prototypes or to “productize” existing technologies will be awarded grants of up to ₹2 crore strictly on a “milestone basis”.
Moreover, an additional grant of up to ₹10 crore would be given for setting up and strengthening incubation centres.
“One of the suggestions during the first Mining Startup Summit organised at IIT, Bombay in May this year was to explore the possibility of making a provision about funding the researches of the startups in the incubation centres at IITs/NITs and other technical institutions relevant to mining and metal industry through R&D funds of the ministry of mines.
Accordingly, these guidelines are being issued for funding startups or a consortium of startups under the science and technology programme of the ministry of mines that are working in areas that are critical for the growth of mining and metal industry,” said a government official privy to the development.
Queries sent to ministry of mines remained unanswered at press time.
The grant scheme has been instituted to plug a wide gap in financial support for technology-driven startups in the initial phase. The aim idea to fund potential startups with promising ideas, innovations and technologies.
This is expected to enable some of these startups to graduate to a level where they will be able to raise investments from angel and venture capitalist or reach a position to seek loans from commercial banks financial institutions.
The proposed seed support disbursed to startups is positioned to act as a bridge between development and commercialization of innovative technologies, products, services in the mining sector, the official quoted earlier said.
In the monsoon session the government amended the mining legislations to bring out several atomic and critical minerals including Lithium out from the restricted list to allow its auction and mining the private sector. Separate legislation’s were also bright out to allow private sector in off shore and deep seated mining including minerals in the rare earth segment critical for several industrial use.
In several mineral categories in critical, strategic, deep seated and rare earth segments mining will be fine for the very first time. The R&D initiative of the government is aimed to see that right technologies are employed and mining is undertaken in most efficient and sustainable manner.
The R&D initiative of the mines ministry is directed towards five broad topics - critical minerals, rare earth minerals, recycling and circular economy, energy efficiency, and new material and processes. The critical mineral projects among others involve development and establishment of technologies for recovery of nickel and lithium from scrap battery, recovery of Lithium from new deposits including development of process flow sheets for the mineral beneficiation for new finds.
The R&D projects will also involve Collaborative robotics programs involving Development of robots also known as cobots, use cameras, robotic arms, grippers, and conveyor systems to lift, move, and stack materials as needed. These can also perform a wide range of tasks such as material handling. assembly, inspection, and maintenance alongside human workers.
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