GOBARdhan Scheme: Govt Offers Assured CBG Offtake, Administered Price And Capital Support

New Delhi, Sep 22 (KNN) The government has operationalised the Rs 23,731-crore GOBARdhan scheme for compressed biogas (CBG), introducing assured offtake, an administered price, capital assistance and financing support to improve revenue visibility for producers. The scheme will run from FY2026-27 to FY2035-36.

GOBARdhan, or Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan, seeks to convert organic waste such as cattle dung, crop residue, food waste and other biomass into CBG and organic manure. 

The government has said the framework is aimed at nearly ten-fold growth in domestic CBG production and greater private investment in the sector, PTI reported.

Assured Offtake And Pricing

Under the framework, eligible CBG producers can access assured offtake of up to 100 per cent of CBG available for sale, subject to technical and operational feasibility. The gas will be linked to City Gas Distribution (CGD) entities or identified CBG clusters for aggregation and injection into trunk pipelines.

CGD entities will also have procurement obligations for CBG supplied to the CNG transport and domestic PNG segments. The notified trajectory is 3 per cent in FY2026-27, 4 per cent in FY2027-28 and 5 per cent from FY2028-29 onwards.

The scheme sets an administered CBG price of Rs 2,110 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), with the framework intended to provide price visibility for at least 10 years. The government will also provide affordability support of up to Rs 10 per kg of CBG to the designated synchronisation operator.

GAIL has been designated as the synchronisation operator for CBG procurement and pooling and for operating the CBG-CGD synchronisation mechanism.

Capital Support Linked To Performance

The scheme also provides capital assistance for eligible CBG projects, including greenfield and brownfield plants and investments in feedstock aggregation and organic-manure value addition.

The assistance is linked to project milestones rather than being an unconditional upfront grant. These include statutory approvals, commencement of commercial CBG sales and subsequent plant performance, with production data subject to verification.

The framework also includes pipeline infrastructure, credit guarantee support and a CBG ecosystem challenge fund, bringing demand, pricing, infrastructure and financing measures under a single policy framework.

SATAT To Be Subsumed

The new framework marks a shift from the earlier Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative, under which CBG production and marketing were promoted. 

The government has said the CBG ecosystem, previously spread across multiple initiatives and ministries, is being brought under a unified framework led by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG).

The scheme is intended to address key commercial constraints facing CBG projects, particularly uncertainty around buyers, pricing and financing. However, actual project viability will also depend on feedstock availability, plant utilisation, logistics, financing costs and the ability of producers to meet performance requirements.

As of August 13, 2026, 1,929 CBG/Bio-CNG plants had been registered nationally, of which 217 were commissioned and 357 were under construction.

(KNN Bureau)