New Delhi (ABC Live): India’s critical minerals challenge has reached a decisive moment. Until recently, the debate focused mainly on geological potential. Now, however, it has widened into a test of state capacity, policy coordination, and delivery on the ground.

Against this backdrop, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) has presented its Exploration Action Plan for Field Season 2026–27, the most ambitious effort yet to link geoscience with India’s strategic and industrial goals.

Importantly, GSI placed the plan before the 65th Central Geological Programming Board (CGPB), and the government released it through an official Press Information Bureau (PIB) note dated 21 January 2026:
👉 https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2216944

This is not a routine technical update. Instead, it sends a policy signal. It shows that India wants to move away from passive dependence on imported minerals and toward active control over its mineral future. Whether this ambition delivers results will depend on execution.

Why This Plan Matters Now

Across the world, critical minerals have become tools of power. Today, lithium, rare earths, graphite, gallium, germanium, cobalt, and nickel sit at the centre of energy transition, electronics, defence, and industrial competition.

For India, therefore, mineral security no longer sits upstream alone. Instead, it acts as a downstream industrial constraint. As ABC Live has shown earlier, India’s push to scale electronics manufacturing—from semiconductors to EV components—remains exposed to fragile and foreign-controlled mineral supply chains:
👉 https://abclive.in/2025/10/28/india-electronics-manufacturing-mineral-security/

Because of this link, readers should judge the GSI plan not merely as a geoscience programme, but as a foundation of India’s manufacturing and strategic autonomy agenda.

The Programme, by the Numbers

For Field Season 2026–27, GSI has proposed 1,068 scientific projects, creating one of the largest exploration portfolios India has ever approved.

Programme Composition (FS 2026–27)

Taken together, these numbers point to a clear change in direction. GSI is moving away from open-ended mapping and toward resource-focused exploration.

The G3 Pivot: Necessary, but Not Enough

The most important technical shift lies in the sharp rise in G3-stage exploration. At this stage, agencies identify inferred resources. As a result, mineral blocks begin to look credible to bidders and investors.

This shift breaks from India’s past approach, under which agencies allowed many projects to stall at early mapping stages (G4/G5).

What this improves

• Blocks become easier to auction
• Private players receive clearer signals
• Uncertainty around mineral potential falls

However, key gaps remain

• G3 does not mean a mine is ready
• G2/G1 drilling and feasibility still lack funding clarity
• Investors continue to face policy and demand risk

Therefore, while the G3 push is necessary, it remains insufficient by itself.

Data, AI and NGDR: Strong Tools, Real Enforcement Gaps

At the same time, GSI has placed strong emphasis on AI, geoinformatics, and data integration, backed by 58 projects and reliance on the National Geoscience Data Repository (NGDR).

In principle, NGDR should reduce duplication and speed up discovery. In practice, India’s main challenge has never been platforms. Instead, it has been discipline and enforcement.

Unless authorities mandate, audit, and enforce timely data uploads, NGDR will function as a storage site rather than a planning tool.

Fiscal Reform: Royalty Changes Improve the Economics

Meanwhile, an important support for the exploration push comes from outside GSI: royalty reform for critical minerals.

India has moved toward market-linked (ad valorem) royalties, which better reflect mineral value. As ABC Live has explained, this reform improves clarity and lowers long-term risk for explorers:
👉 https://abclive.in/2025/11/14/explained-indias-royalty-reforms-for-critical-mineral-exploration/

As a result, the basic economics of exploration have improved. Still, fiscal reform alone cannot fix execution gaps.

Minerals Without Manufacturing Are Not Security

Crucially, minerals matter only when they feed domestic value chains. While the GSI plan mentions processing and beneficiation, it leaves these responsibilities largely to industry.

However, as ABC Live’s analysis of electronics manufacturing shows, this separation creates risk:
👉 https://abclive.in/2025/10/28/india-electronics-manufacturing-mineral-security/

Without clear links to processing plants, offtake contracts, and factory demand, India could repeat a familiar pattern—finding minerals at home but importing high-value products from abroad.

Border-Area Exploration: Strategic, but Slow by Design

The plan includes 37 projects in border regions, including 16 mineral projects. Strategically, these efforts strengthen resource mapping in sensitive areas. Operationally, however, security rules and layered approvals slow progress.

As a result, policymakers should treat these projects as strategic investments, not quick wins.

The Missing Middle: From Discovery to Production

India’s mineral system often breaks down after discovery but before production.

Unless policymakers fix this middle layer, exploration gains will not translate into real supply.

What Must Change in the Next 12 Months

First, agencies must move G3 projects quickly to auction.
Second, regulators must enforce NGDR rules, not merely encourage compliance.
Third, the government must link exploration with processing plans.
Fourth, policymakers must de-risk early capital beyond G3.
Finally, policymakers must measure success by outcomes, not activities.

What Failure Would Look Like

Failure will not arrive suddenly. Instead, institutions will allow it to unfold quietly.

It will appear as reports without mines, auctions with few bidders, slow clearances, continued imports of refined minerals, and growing distance between public agencies and private capital.

In short, it will look like continuity dressed up as reform.

What We Still Don’t Know

Several questions remain open:

• Which minerals will receive priority
• How many G3 projects will reach auction
• Who will fund feasibility work
• Whether clearances will truly speed up
• Where processing capacity will come from
• How authorities will measure success

These unknowns will shape outcomes.

What We Will Track

ABC Live will monitor progress quarter by quarter, focusing on:

• G3-to-auction conversion
• Auction participation and bid strength
• Entry of private capital
• Clearance timelines
• NGDR data quality
• Creation of processing capacity
• Links to electronics, EV, and defence demand

Closing

Ultimately, India now faces a clear choice. Either this exploration push becomes the moment when discovery finally turns into mineral security, or it becomes another case of strong intent undone by weak follow-through. Over the next 12 months, execution—not intent—will decide the outcome. If authorities enforce timelines, reduce risk, and link processing to demand, the 2026–27 plan can move India from promise to power. If not, failure will arrive quietly—in stalled projects, missed opportunities, and rising import dependence. In today’s world, standing still is no longer neutral; it is costly.

How We Verify GSI Exploration Action Plan 2026–27

Official Government Sources

• GSI Exploration Action Plan 2026–27 — PIB, 21 Jan 2026
  https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2216944

• Piyush Goyal to Address 65th CGPB Meeting — PIB, 20 Jan 2026
  https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2216338

• National Critical Mineral Mission — PIB, 9 Apr 2025
  https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2120525

• Mineral Exploration under NMEP (FS 2024–25) — PIB, 26 Mar 2025
  https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2115223

ABC Live Internal Analysis

• Royalty reforms for critical minerals
  https://abclive.in/2025/11/14/explained-indias-royalty-reforms-for-critical-mineral-exploration/

• Electronics manufacturing and mineral security
  https://abclive.in/2025/10/28/india-electronics-manufacturing-mineral-security/