50 compressed biogas (CBG) projects commissioned in India: Centre

The government has informed the Parliament that 50 compressed biogas (CBG) projects have been commissioned in India as of November 2023. The total production capacity of these plants is said to be of about 300 tonne per day. These projects are supported with both equity of project proponent and debt support from different financial institutions.

The government said that CBG projects falls under agriculture infrastructure as per RBI guidelines. Hence, loans to agriculture infrastructure are being classified under “priority sector” lending which has encouraged banks to sanctions loans for CBG projects.

The Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Rameshwar Teli said that major banks have developed exclusive loan product or scheme for financing CBG projects in the country. Some of these banks include Canara Bank, SBI, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India etc.

The minister also informed that state level committees have been constituted for implementation and monitoring of SATAT initiative in Andhra Pradesh,  Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

Promoting SATAT

Informing the Parliament, the minister said that the Central Government has taken various steps to support SATAT on pan India basis, including Central Financial Assistance (CFA) to all kind of CBG/biogas plants under umbrella scheme of National Bio Energy Programme of MNRE ministry. There is additional Central assistance on municipal solid waste (MSW) based CBG plants to States and Union Territories for solid waste management by MoHUA under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0. There is also market development assistance at the rate of Rs. 1500 per metric tonne on fermented organic manure produced from CBG projects of department of fertilizers among many others.

The ministry has also introduced phase wise mandatory blending of CBG in CNG (Transport) & PNG (Domestic) segments of CGD sector from financial year 2025-26. There is also approval of scheme for providing financial assistance to CBG producers for procurement of biomass aggregation machinery to support collection of biomass etc.

Rameshwar Teli also said that the Government has set a target to raise the share of natural gas in energy mix to 15% in 2030. Presently the share of natural gas in India in energy basket is 6.7% only.