By Advika Dwivedi
Can a country aspiring to become a global manufacturing and clean-energy power afford to abandon domestic copper production while continuing to import the very same metal from abroad?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently framed this contradiction starkly while addressing a public meeting in Secunderabad. Linking India’s rising import dependence to broader concerns about economic resilience and national security, Modi specifically cited copper while cautioning against excessive imports. “By organising strikes, copper plants have been shuttered in India, and now the conditions are such that forex is spent on copper imports,’ he remarked, urging industrial stakeholders and labour groups to think in terms of India’s long-term strategic interests.
His comments come at a critical geopolitical moment. Escalating instability in West Asia, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, has once again exposed how vulnerable global supply chains can become during periods of global disruption, and copper has emerged as one of the most strategically important commodities in the new economic order. The global clean energy transition, in many ways, is the copper transition. Yet, India has weakened its own domestic capacity.
Hollowing Out
Before 2018, India was a net exporter of refined copper. Following the shutdown of the Sterlite Copper plant, India rapidly turned into a net importer. Today India imports nearly 3,63,000 tonnes of refined copper cathodes annually, spending more than Rs 24, 552 crore in the process. At a time when India’s ambition in electric mobility, renewable energy, semiconductor manufacturing, and infrastructure expansion are accelerating, this dependence is becoming economically irrational and strategically dangerous. Industrial estimates suggest that copper demand could more than double by 2030, while projections linked to NITI Aayog estimate demand could rise to 10 million tonnes by 2047.
No major industrial economy can afford such vulnerability. Yet any argument for restarting Sterile Copper immediately encounters the environmental and public health concerns that led to its closure. But can India continue operating under the illusion that shutting domestic industries eliminates environmental costs? It does not. It merely exports production and pollution while hollowing out India’s own industrial base. The copper India imports today is still produced somewhere, often under environmental conditions that India neither regulates nor monitors.
This is where India must move beyond the outdated binary of “industry versus environment”. The larger policy question at the heart is whether India can finally build the institutional capacity to regulate industrialisation responsibly.
Advanced economies did not prosper by abandoning industries. That is why the emerging discussions around the green copper restart are significant.
Rewriting the Binary
Recent proposals reportedly placed before Madras High Court include upgraded emission control technologies, stricter hazardous waste protocols, expanded desalination and water recycling systems, independent third-party audits, and stronger community oversight mechanisms
If implemented transparently, Sterlite could become more than just a reopened plant. It could become a test case for whether India can build a new model of environmentally responsible and accountable industrialisation.
The stakes extend beyond copper alone. Copper production also supports downstream industries dependent on Sulphuric acid and phosphoric acid, including fertiliser manufacturing and chemicals.
The Sterile debate, therefore, is no longer just about one company or one protest movement. It is about if India can simultaneously pursue industrial resilience, clean energy ambitions, and environmental accountability. A confident nation should be capable of producing copper, protecting public health, and enforcing environmental safeguards at the same time.
India does not need less industrialisation, rather it needs industrialisation that people can trust.
(The writer is a political commentator)
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.