New Delhi: LOHUM, India’s largest diversified producer of sustainable critical minerals and advanced materials, today announced the appointment of Air Chief Marshal R. K. S. Bhadauria (Retd), former Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force, as Strategic Advisor.
The appointment anchors a first-of-its-kind national programme that will treat India’s phased out defence assets not as scrap, but as a strategic reserve of critical minerals, advanced metals and recoverable industrial value, transforming old & decommissioned equipment that once safeguarded the nation’s borders into assets and reserves to safeguard critical minerals, energy, innovation and industrial capabilities for strategic goals.
The engagement is being undertaken in partnership with VishvaSutra, the strategic advisory institution co-founded by Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria, which brings together leadership and experience from across the aerospace, defence, technology, policy and industrial ecosystems to convert strategic possibilities into executable national capabilities across air, land, sea and space. This programme is an expression of that mission at industrial scale.
“We are honoured to welcome Air Chief Marshal R. K. S. Bhadauria (Retd) to LOHUM as our Strategic Advisor,” said Rajat Verma, Founder and CEO, LOHUM. “Every defence platform represents decades of national investment, engineering excellence and strategic value. Even after these assets decommissioned from active service, the critical minerals and advanced materials within them remain invaluable. India’s future manufacturing competitiveness will depend as much on recovering strategic materials as on mining and refining new ones. Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria’s unparalleled understanding of the defence ecosystem, together with VishvaSutra’s depth in technology, strategy and institution-building, will help us create a world-class framework for recovering, refining and reintroducing these materials into India’s industrial economy.”
Air Chief Marshal R. K. S. Bhadauria (Retd) said: “I am pleased to join LOHUM as Strategic Advisor. India’s defence ecosystem is built upon precision, discipline and long-term national interest. Applying those same principles to the recovery of strategic materials, and combining them with indigenous technology development in gallium, titanium, rare earths and other critical minerals, creates an important opportunity for the country. Equipment that once safeguarded India’s borders can continue serving the nation by strengthening its critical-mineral supply chains. I look forward to guiding LOHUM and working through VishvaSutra to help establish the institutional and technological pathways through which decommissioned defence assets can contribute to India’s future industrial and strategic capability.”
Why This, Why Now
India remains heavily dependent on imports for several critical minerals essential to its defence, semiconductor, electronics, clean-energy and mobility ambitions. At the same time, decades of national investment remain embedded within military platforms and equipment approaching the end of their operational lives, aircraft, vehicles, radar and communication systems, batteries, cables, power systems, electronics and specialised machinery that still contain significant quantities of titanium, aluminium, copper, cobalt, nickel, rare earth elements, specialised steels and high-performance alloys.
At present, much of this value is dispersed through open bidding, conventional auction, disposal and export channels, resulting in India losing materials it must later import again in refined or manufactured form, often at greater economic and strategic cost. The scientific recovery and reintroduction of these materials can reduce import dependence, strengthen supply-chain resilience, and support the objectives of the National Critical Minerals Mission and Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
A Three-Pillar Programme
- Building a Trusted Defence-Material Recovery Ecosystem
The first objective is to establish organised, secure and transparent pathways for recovering strategic materials from end-of-life defence assets across the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy, creating institutionally trusted channels through which these materials remain within India’s industrial economy rather than being lost to export.
- Advancing Indigenous Deep Technologies
The engagement extends beyond material recovery into indigenous technology development. Supported by VishvaSutra’s technology and strategic-development capabilities, LOHUM will advance a portfolio of critical-material programmes from laboratory validation towards demonstration and operational readiness, including sustainable extraction and refining of gallium towards semiconductor-grade purity, recovery of titanium for aerospace and defence applications, and high-purity extraction of rare earth elements, tantalum, tungsten and other strategic materials from retired defence equipment. These are foundational inputs for semiconductors, sensors, jet engines, communication systems, batteries, aerospace structures and precision weapons, materials whose availability increasingly shapes industrial competitiveness, technological autonomy and national security.
- Creating a National Framework
The third pillar is institutional: identifying priority opportunities for indigenising products and technologies dependent on critical minerals, and contributing to a policy and strategy paper on critical minerals in the defence sector for engagement with government and relevant institutions. An annual national platform is also envisaged, bringing together the armed forces, policymakers, scientists, manufacturers, refiners, technology developers and investors around India’s critical-material requirements, institutionalising a conversation that has so far remained fragmented across departments, industries and individual initiatives.
LOHUM’s Capabilities
LOHUM has established capabilities in advanced refining and recycling technologies, with a proven track record of recovering strategically important materials such as copper, aluminium, nickel, cobalt, lithium, titanium, specialty steels, rare earth elements and high-performance alloys, transforming them into battery-grade critical minerals, advanced metals, engineered materials and components that support electric mobility, renewable energy, energy storage, electronics, aerospace and defence manufacturing. This scientific and industrial capability positions LOHUM to lead India’s first structured initiative to recover critical minerals from retired defence assets, and to build secure, circular and domestic supply chains for the country.
A Second Service
In Sanskrit, a sutra is the thread that binds scattered knowledge into a coherent whole. This programme seeks to create such a thread in industrial form, connecting the final sortie of a fighter aircraft to the first wafer of a semiconductor; linking past defence investment to future technological sovereignty; and bringing together the armed forces, science, industry and policy around a shared national mission.
