A meaningful Battery Aadhaar framework must be explicitly linked to India’s upstream strategy. (Source: Representative image)

India’s clean energy ambitions rest increasingly on batteries — powering electric vehicles, renewable energy storage and distributed power systems. Our ambition to build a globally competitive, resilient, and sustainable battery ecosystem hinges on a hard truth: digital traceability alone cannot deliver mineral security, circularity or strategic autonomy.

Battery Aadhaar, conceptualised as a digital identity system for batteries, marks a critical step forward in making opaque supply chains visible. But visibility is not the same as control. For Battery Aadhaar to move from a promising registry to a transformative governance instrument, it must be embedded within upstream mineral strategy, downstream market incentives and the lived realities of India’s informal and small-scale industrial ecosystem.

The case for Battery Aadhaar is rather compelling. It can be a solid mechanism for critical mineral governance. As we know the minerals that make batteries possible, eg. lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, are significantly imported, often from geopolitically sensitive regions and environmentally and socially fragile contexts. Global institutions such as the International Energy Agency and the World Bank have consistently highlighted that mineral supply chains for clean technologies are far more geographically concentrated than fossil fuels, making them vulnerable to disruptions, price volatility and leveraged manipulation.

Battery Aadhaar responds to this challenge by offering lifecycle traceability from extraction and processing to end-use and recycling. It aligns well with India’s strengths in digital public infrastructure and with global moves toward battery passports, particularly in the European Union. However, the risk lies in mistaking traceability for sovereignty.

No upstream control risks hollow security

A digital passport can tell us where minerals come from, how they were processed, and under what conditions. What it cannot do, on its own, is change the underlying power dynamics of mineral access. India currently controls a negligible share of global reserves for most Critical Energy Transition Minerals (CETMs). Even as initiatives like KABIL pursue overseas assets and the National Critical Mineral Mission promotes domestic exploration, India remains structurally dependent on international markets

In such a context, Battery Aadhaar risks becoming a sophisticated ledger of dependence which is meticulously tracking minerals that India neither owns nor decisively influences. Without parallel investments in domestic exploration, beneficiation and refining capacity, traceability may improve transparency without improving bargaining power. In fact, even with perfect traceability, India remains exposed if it continues to rely overwhelmingly on a supply chain that is geopolitically designed and a value chain that is concentrated by a few global players

A meaningful Battery Aadhaar framework must therefore be explicitly linked to India’s upstream strategy: identifying where traceability data can inform decisions on strategic stockpiling, domestic value addition and technology substitution. Otherwise, India may end up compliant with global standards while remaining strategically exposed.

The informal recycling paradox

One of the strongest arguments for Battery Aadhaar is its potential to enable a circular battery economy. Recycling is often presented as a technical solution to mineral scarcity. Yet in India, recycling is not merely a technical domain. It is a deeply social and economic one!

India’s battery recycling ecosystem is currently dominated by informal actors, particularly in lead-acid batteries and increasingly in lithium-ion waste. These actors provide livelihoods to thousands, operate with minimal regulatory oversight and often rely on unsafe and environmentally damaging practices. Formal recycling capacity remains limited and capital-intensive, while enforcement of existing rules under the E-Waste and Battery Waste Management frameworks remains uneven across states.

Battery Aadhaar could inadvertently marginalise this informal ecosystem if designed as a compliance-heavy, data-intensive system accessible only to large manufacturers and formal recyclers. Without deliberate pathways for integration through aggregation models, simplified reporting mechanisms, and financial incentives, the informal recyclers may be pushed further underground rather than brought into a safer, regulated fold. In fact, if traceability done right, could significantly improve recovery rates of valuable battery materials, meaning recovered materials can cushion supply shocks and lower long-term input costs for domestic manufacturers.

Evidence from waste governance reforms in India shows that exclusionary formalisation often backfires, leading to data gaps, enforcement challenges and social resistance. A just and effective Battery must therefore recognise informal recyclers not as a problem to be eliminated but as stakeholders to be transitioned

The cost of compliance

Another underexplored dimension is the impact of Battery Aadhaar on India’s MSME-dominated battery and component manufacturing ecosystem. Digital traceability systems demand consistent data reporting, auditing and compliance with evolving standards. Large manufacturers may absorb these costs with relative ease. Smaller firms cannot.

If Battery Aadhaar becomes a de facto market access requirement especially for public procurement, incentives, or exports without commensurate support mechanisms, it risks accelerating consolidation in the sector. This could undermine domestic manufacturing diversity and contradict the very industrial resilience Battery Aadhaar seeks to promote.

International experience with ESG reporting and carbon disclosure shows that compliance regimes without financial and technical support tend to favour incumbents. To avoid this, Battery Aadhaar must be accompanied by graded obligations, capacity-building programmes and preferential incentives for MSMEs that demonstrate progress rather than perfection.

Governance matters more than technology

Battery Aadhaar is often framed as a technological solution that is enabled by blockchain, digital twins and has interoperable databases. But technology is only as effective as the governance framework that surrounds it.

Key questions remain unresolved. Who owns the data generated through Battery Aadhaar? How is commercial confidentiality protected while ensuring public accountability? What mechanisms exist to audit self-reported data, particularly across domestic borders? And crucially, how are incentives aligned so that accurate reporting is rewarded rather than treated as a compliance burden?

Global experience with sustainability certifications suggests that without robust third-party verification and enforcement, traceability systems can devolve into box-ticking exercises. India must therefore resist the temptation to treat Battery Aadhaar as a purely digital public good and instead design it as a regulatory instrument with teeth, linked to fiscal incentives, procurement preferences and environmental accountability.

From registry to strategy

Battery Aadhaar has the potential to be a foundation of India’s clean energy governance architecture. But that potential will only be realised if it is embedded within a broader political economy of minerals, one that acknowledges constraints, confronts trade-offs and prioritises inclusion.

This means using traceability data to inform upstream investment decisions, designing recycling pathways that integrate informal actors, supporting MSMEs through the transition and aligning digital systems with enforceable policy levers. It also means recognising that mineral security is not only about tonnes and technologies, but about trust, institutions and long-term capacity.

Battery Aadhaar should not merely tell us where our batteries come from. It should help determine who benefits, who bears the costs and whether India’s energy transition is truly resilient and just. Without this broader vision, it risks becoming a high-tech solution to a deeply structural problem.

(Ankit Pandey works at the intersection of energy transition, critical minerals, and just transition in India and the Asia-Pacific region.)

(Meheli Roy Choudhury, a Research Consultant at the Centre for Climate Change and Energy Transition, Chintan Research Foundation - CRF).

Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.