This abstract deals with the physical separation processes of rare earth bearing placer heavy minerals. In general the Indian coast beach sand consists of the heavy minerals particularly ilmenite, rutile, garnet, sillimanite, zircon and monazite. Among these minerals monazite is considered as the primary mineral for recovery of rare earth elements. Due to high demand to the mankind on the use of mobile phones and motor vehicles etc, and the same time the requirement on the use of rare earth elements in day to day use of electronic and batter operated vehicles and mobiles, it is necessary to recover rare earth bearing minerals from primary secondary minerals. In recent it is found that rare earth elements are found not only in the primary mineral monazite, the other minerals such as garnet and sillimanite also contain rare earth elements in the placer deposits.    Hence this present paper deals with the recovery of rare earth bearing placer heavy minerals by gravity, magnetic and flotation processes. The experiments on the recovery processes and the economics of the process are also discussed.