Union Cabinet clears new royalty charges of important minerals

Seeking to cut back import dependency and vulnerabilities within the provide chain of important minerals, the Union Cabinet Wednesday (November 13, 2025), authorized the rationalisation of royalty charges of graphite, caesium, rubidium and zirconium. 

With the rationalisation construction, graphite, whereby royalty was beforehand sought on per tonne-basis (that’s, a set quantity for a selected weight of ore), would now be charged on an advert valorem foundation. Graphite with lower than 80% mounted carbon content material could be topic to 4% royalty of the common sale worth, while that with 80% or extra carbon content material would entice 2%.

Caesium and rubidium could be topic to a royalty charge of two% on the common sale worth based mostly on the particular steel contained within the ore produced. A royalty charge of 1% would apply to Zirconium. Caesium is utilized in atomic clocks, GPS techniques and medical devices required in most cancers remedy, amongst different makes use of. Rubidium is utilized in making speciality glass utilised in fibre optics, telecommunication techniques and evening imaginative and prescient gadgets, and so forth. 

Zirconium is used as a cladding materials for gas cylinders in nuclear reactors and different industries, together with aerospace and healthcare.

In an announcement, the Cabinet held that the choice to rationalise would promote the public sale of mineral blocks of caesium, rubidium and zirconium. Thus, additionally serving to hint different related minerals discovered inside them as lithium, tungsten, rare-earths and niobium, and so forth. The sixth tranche of the public sale for important mineral blocks that commenced this September had 5 blocks of graphite, two blocks of rubidium and 1 block every of caesium and zirconium.

“Today’s approval of the Union Cabinet on the speed of royalty will assist the bidders to rationally submit their monetary bids in public sale,” the cupboard assertion emphasised.

The graphite push 

At current, India impots 60% of its graphite necessities. It is a important element in electrical automobile batteries because the anode materials answerable for delivering excessive conductivity and cost capability. It was the one mineral amongst different strategic and demanding minerals whose royalty was levied on a per tonne foundation. The ministry acknowledged with the rationalisation “royalty accruals in several grades would proportionately the modifications within the costs of the mineral”.