On 24 September 2020, a meeting on “Future prospects of Compressed Biogas projects in India” was organized through video conferencing under the chairmanship of Shri. V.K. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog. The called upon meeting saw the participation of several Ministries, its bodies (like MNRE, MoPNG, PESO, and IREDA), and many industry stakeholders. After a short presentation on an overview of the industrial ecosystem by NITI Aayog, the meeting forum was left open to inputs from industry stakeholders.
IBA, in continuation of its series of earlier communication to NITI Aayog, represented the industry and reiterated the various challenges, which presently is jeopardizing industry growth. Also, the desired intervention sought from different Ministries featuring in the biogas/ the bio-CNG ecosystem was clearly communicated. A follow-up letter upon the meeting has been sent by IBA to NITI Aayog along with other concerned Ministries.
Amongst others, the primary focus areas of the discussion revolved around developing a robust financial framework for funding of CBG projects, establishing a fair price regimen for bio-CNG in tandem with input variables, Supply chain related issues, and setting up of Bio-mass Resource Bank, overcoming the inverted GST structure issue, introducing the gas blending quota, levering upon the existing gas grid infrastructure, strengthening the organic manure distribution network, and so on.
All the participating Ministry bodies also submitted their observations w.r.t their role and outlook towards providing the needful stimulus to address the concerns raised by the industry stakeholders. Overall, the meeting can be considered as a precursor to a much-needed paradigm shift towards the inter-Ministerial coordination required to harmonize the biogas/bio-CNG ecosystem.
