View: Breaking the resource curse

India has an abundance of mineral deposits. The country is the second-largest producer of steel; the third-largest producer of coal; the fourth-largest producer of iron and has the fifth-largest bauxite reserves in the world. Overall, India produces over ninety different types of minerals. A country with such a rich resource base should leverage its economic growth and wealth creation capacity on this inherent strength. However, as of 2017-18, the mineral sector (minus petroleum and natural gas) accounted for merely 1.53 per cent of the country’s GDP. Moreover, the resource-rich regions in India — the states of Jharkhand, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh — have some of the lowest per capita incomes in the country.