The Prospects of Aluminium in India

ALUMINIUM the most abundant of all the metallic elements found in the earth's crust was at one time more precious and rare than silver and gold, but in less than 100 years it has become one of the most important metals in the world. It was successfully produced commercially for the first time only a decade before the turn of century. Since then its production has rapidly increased from 12,000 tons in 1905 to over 4 million tons at present and has attained a position second only to steel. It is it young and virile industry and has surpassed lead and zinc and wrought copper
as revealed in Table I. It is observed that during the
period 1948 to 1958, aluminium's share of the four
major non-ferrous metals increased from 18 to 28 percent while copper dropped from its share of 33.4 to 28'5 percent.