While India is gearing up for the paradigm shift in being self-dependent through the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, the latest deliberations to discontinue the Central Financial Assistance program for biogas/ CBG/ bio-CNG projects comes as a major setback for the industry. With three distinct outputs of ‘Biogas/CBG/bio-CNG projects/plants, they work as ‘scientific waste treatment and pollution abatement plants’, ‘organic fertilizer production plants’, and ‘gaseous fuel (Biogas/CBG/bio-CNG) generation plants’, thereby serving to resolve three burning problems of pollution, energy, and the need for eco-friendly organic fertilizer.

Within this context, it’s also worthwhile to draw our attention to the industry’s tremendous potential to negate the present trade deficit scenario of India. The nullification can be in terms of reducing the overall import of crude oil and fertilizer and mitigating the climate change effects of greenhouse gases (GHG). Additionally, setting up these plants create huge employment opportunities across the industry value chain, with incremental income opportunities, especially for the farmers.

To succinctly corroborate the above statement, if all of the country’s biogas potential could be unlocked, the distinct outputs mentioned above shall result from the annual production of 62 million metric tonnes of Bio-CNG along with 658 million tonnes of organic fertilizer. The direct impact would include a reduction in fossil fuel import (by around 35 % of imported crude oil) and synthetic fertilizer import ( roughly 27 % of imported N, P, K fertilizers). This shall also result in employment generation of over a million personnel, scientific waste treatment of about 1,286 million tonnes of organic waste annually, thereby reducing annual GHG emission of 265 million tonnes of CO2eqv. The achieved GHG reduction shall be commensurate with approx. 11% of the total GHG emission in India (based on 2005 level). Moreover, being the sixth-largest economy (third largest based on PPP terms) and fourth largest GHG emitter, India surely has a key role to play in the concerted global effort towards addressing climate concerns. So, clearly, a flourishing Biogas/CBG/bio-CNG industry can potentially turn out to be the panacea that promises to hit many birds in one shot.

Now, let’s take a look into the relative importance of the recently lapsed and withdrawn Central Financial Assistance (CFA) scheme for setting up Biogas/CBG/bio-CNG projects. The latest notified scheme covered as much as INR 4 crores/ MWel.eq. (max.  up to INR 10 crore per project), which roughly encompasses 15-25 % of the Capital Cost of a typical large-scale bio-CNG project/plant. Also, as per the latest relevant notification dated 28.02.2020, in FY 2019-20, around INR 478 crores for 257 MWeq. was allocated under the CFA grants. Unambiguously, this allocated amount was way too less than the CFA/subsidy needed to achieve the envisaged target under the SATAT initiative. SATAT, an initiative of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) under the bio-fuel policy, targets to facilitate setting up 5000 plants. This means a subsidy requirement of approximately INR 20,000 crores (considering each plant of avg. 5 Tons/day bio-CNG output capacity), over a five-year period.

Furthermore, it’s worthwhile mentioning that, several Ministries, encompassing MNRE, MoPNG, MoDWS, MoCF, MoHUA, MoAFW, MoEFCC, and few others, have been supporting this industry. However, the need of the hour is to pool and integrate all the inter-ministerial incentives and resources, relevant to this industry, through better coordination amongst all the Ministries.

So, in view of the afore-mentioned indispensable offerings of biogas/CBG/Bio-CNG, we Indian Biogas Association (IBA), on behalf of the stakeholders of the biogas industry, strongly support the continuation of the “Central Financial Assistance scheme for setting-up biogas/ CBG/ bio-CNG” projects. In this context, IBA has started a petition to appeal for, “Continuation of the CFA program: a crucial driver to mainstream the Biogas/CBG industry”. We urge you to be a part of us in supporting the cause.