NavPrakriti to Invest ₹100 Crore in Odisha Critical Minerals Refining Facility
NavPrakriti announces a ₹100 crore investment to set up a critical minerals refining facility in Odisha by FY29, focusing on lithium, cobalt, and nickel recovery.
NavPrakriti, a lithium-ion battery recycling and refurbishment company, announced on Tuesday plans to invest more than ₹100 crore to set up a new, state-of-the-art greenfield critical minerals refining facility in Odisha. This will be the company’s second greenfield unit and is set to be fully up and running by FY 2028–29. The announcement comes right after NavPrakriti was recognized as eligible under the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), a government initiative focused on boosting the domestic recovery of strategic materials and cutting down India’s reliance on imported minerals.
The Odisha facility will process up to 5,000 metric tonnes per year of end-of-life batteries, with a main focus on extracting high-purity critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, along with other rare earth elements. By recycling used batteries and production scrap, NavPrakriti wants to help strengthen India’s circular economy and make the supply chain more resilient. To support its technology goals, the company is also building an R&D ecosystem by partnering with global and national institutions to push advances in chemical recovery and battery refurbishment.
On top of the industrial benefits, the project is set to have a real impact on the region, too. Co-founder Akhilesh Bagaria said the investment will create more than 500 direct and indirect jobs. Avnish Bagaria, fellow co-founder, added that the NCMM eligibility will help speed up NavPrakriti’s plan to partner with over 150 battery OEMs and top battery manufacturers within the next three years. This new facility builds on the company’s first unit in Serampore, West Bengal, which operates with a recycling capacity of 12,000 tonnes, expandable up to 24,000 tonnes.
To keep the recycling process tightly closed, NavPrakriti recently teamed up with NASH Energy. Thanks to this partnership, all batteries and production scraps from NASH will be responsibly managed and recycled at NavPrakriti’s facilities.
