Define roles of petroleum, renewable ministries under National Integrated CBG Scheme, says industry

Confederation of Biomass Energy Industry of India (CBEII) has said that the central government’s National Integrated Compressed Biogas (CBG) Promotion Scheme (NICPS), in its currently proposed form, does not clearly demarcate the responsibilities of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG). This creates ambiguity in technology oversight, scheme design, pricing frameworks and off take mechanism and may result in overlaps, gaps and weaker accountability, the industry body says.

In a letter to the MoPNG, the association proposed seven structural interventions for a robust national CBG ecosystem. It wants the government to assign the responsibility of technology validation, gas quality and metering standards, capital support frameworks, R&D and pre-processing standards, guidelines for decentralised plants and sustainability and environmental protocols to the ministry of renewable energy.

The responsibilities of petroleum ministry should be to create CBG offtake architecture, pricing frameworks, standard long term offtake agreements and distribution pathways, the association said.

According to CBEII, there is a conflict of interest in the proposal to ask MoPNG to control generation, transmission and distribution of CBG while also managing fossil gas networks as the ministry, which is responsible for fossil fuels, is expected to promote and absorb a competing green fuel.

CBEII’s response has come after MoPNG published a concept note on NICPS for public comments on November 24. The ministry said NICPS seeks to integrate schemes like Central Financial Assistance (CFA) (which is under MNRE), Market Development Assistance (Department of Fertilizers), Development of Pipeline Infrastructure (MoPNG) and Biomass Aggregation Machinery (MoPNG) under the overall coordination of petroleum ministry, the nodal Ministry for CBG projects under the GOBARdhan initiative.

The concept note said that the integration of these schemes under the NICPS will enable a unified approach for CBG production, marketing, and infrastructure development. However, financial and administrative liabilities of ongoing schemes were to remain unchanged with respective ministries.

It is expected that NICPS will result in increased domestic CBG production and supply, enhance connectivity and assured offtake of CBG through integrated infrastructure and financial support, facilitate financial closure and attract private investments, generate employment in rural and urban areas, support scientific waste management and manure utilization, promote LNG import substitution and save foreign exchange and reduce GHG emissions and contribute to India’s Net Zero goals.