MNRE likely to allocate ₹857 crore for phase 2 of waste-to-energy scheme

The government's waste-to-energy initiative may get Rs 857 crore in the second phase of National Bioenergy Programme this year, New & Renewable Energy Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said on Friday.

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) notified the National Bioenergy Programme in November 2022 with a budgetary outlay of Rs 1,715 crore for the period April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2026 to be implemented in two phases.

The first phase has a budget outlay of Rs 858 crore. The programme supports setting up of bioenergy plants by providing central financial assistance.

Addressing the 4th BBB Summit by Indian Biogas Association(IBA), Sarangi said,"...in the phase two, we are likely to get another Rs 857 crore for this."  He noted that agriculture tends to produce a lot of other kinds of waste, and ancillaries associated with agriculture, including animals, also produce a lot of waste.

There are a lot of abundant biomass resources such as agricultural waste, animal dung, sugarcane bagasse, municipal solid waste which can be processed to bring about circularity in the economy, he suggested.

Under National Bioenergy Programme, the ministry has taken up a number of initiatives to promote biogas and the value addition ecosystem in the country, he said.

Sarangi noted that a lot of bricking and pelletization plants were introduced and a lot of plants which were processing and making CBGs (compressed biogas) were supported.

Pellet projects with a total capacity of around 400 tonnes per hour have been supported and a lot of projects have been commissioned.

"Because of certain issues in our guidelines, we were not able to release the kind of commitment, financial commitments which were there. In the meantime, we have discussed with the Department of Expenditure and we have found mechanisms of supporting these industries which have received clearance from us," he said.

He stressed on the need to address challenges in the biogas industry and pointed towards potential barriers like evolution of feedstock logistics, financing gaps and, regulatory coordination.

He mentioned that the biogas industry is small in comparison to solar and wind energy sector and relatively at nascent stage.

"And to that extent there are many potential barriers like evolution of the feedstock logistics, the financing gaps, regulatory coordination which needs to be addressed in forums like this, which provide us with an opportunity to understand these kind of gaps in a much better manner and address them through both government as well as industry-led initiatives in this sector," he said.