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Last week, the country's most-wanted Maoist, Nambala Keshava Rao - popularly known as Basavaraju - was killed along with 26 others in a major security operation in the central state of Chhattisgarh.

Chhattisgarh, for instance, is India's sole producer of tin concentrates and moulding sand, and a leading source of coal, dolomite, bauxite and high-grade iron ore, according to the ministry of mines.

But with the Maoists now weakened, at least four Chhattisgarh mines are set to go to "preferred bidders" after successful auctions in May, according to an official notification.

The collapse of Maoism in Chhattisgarh, a stronghold of the insurgency, offers key clues to the movement's broader decline.

The party still retains some popular support in a few isolated pockets, primarily in the tribal regions of eastern Maharashtra, southern Chhattisgarh and parts of Odisha and Jharkhand - but without a strong military base.