Govt rolls out GOBARdhan rules with assured CBG offtake, 10-year price support
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas issued operational guidelines (dated September 15, 2026) rolling out the Rs 23,731-crore GOBARdhan scheme as India's National Unified Scheme for Compressed Biogas (CBG).
The scheme guarantees CBG producers assured offtake of up to 100% of output, a government-backed administered price fixed for at least 10 years, and capital assistance for new plants.
It brings together six components: assured CBG offtake, a pricing framework, capital assistance, pipeline infrastructure support, credit guarantee support, and a CBG ecosystem challenge fund.
For new CBG plants, financial assistance of Rs 1.25 crore per tonne-per-day (TPD) of eligible capacity has been fixed, capped at Rs 30 crore per project.
The scheme will run for a ten-year period, from FY 2026-27 to FY 2035-36, and is designed to address the buyer and financing uncertainty that has held back private investment in CBG.
GOBARdhan and the CBG Value Chain
GOBARdhan (Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan) was originally launched in April 2018 as a component of Swachh Bharat Mission-Grameen (SBM-G), under the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, to convert cattle dung, agricultural residue, and other biodegradable waste into biogas, Compressed Biogas (CBG), and organic manure. The 2026 Rs 23,731-crore scheme is a distinct, expanded initiative under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) that uses the GOBARdhan brand to specifically scale up CBG as a transport and industrial fuel, reflecting a shift from a sanitation-linked rural programme to a mainstream energy-security instrument.
Key Details
- Original GOBARdhan (2018): nodal ministry — Jal Shakti (DDWS); focus — rural sanitation, decentralised biogas/manure.
- 2026 National Unified CBG Scheme: nodal ministry — Petroleum and Natural Gas; outlay Rs 23,731 crore; duration FY2026-27 to FY2035-36.
- CBG has a calorific value and composition (predominantly methane, >90% after purification) comparable to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), allowing direct blending/substitution in city gas distribution networks.
The new operational guidelines formalise the price and offtake mechanism that was missing from the original GOBARdhan framework, converting a waste-management scheme into a bankable energy investment vehicle.
SATAT Scheme (2018) and CBG Production Targets
The Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme was launched by MoPNG on October 1, 2018, inviting entrepreneurs to set up CBG plants and sell CBG to oil marketing companies (OMCs) for use as an automotive fuel. SATAT targeted 5,000 CBG plants by 2023-24, aiming to produce about 15 million tonnes of CBG annually (roughly 40% of India's then CNG consumption), utilising over 62 million tonnes of waste generated annually. Actual commissioning has lagged well behind target — a core reason the 2026 scheme introduces a 10-year assured price and offtake, to fix the financing gap that stalled SATAT.
Key Details
- SATAT launch: October 1, 2018, by MoPNG.
- Original target: 5,000 CBG plants by 2023-24; only a small fraction were commissioned by the target date.
- CBG can be supplied through the same distribution infrastructure as CNG/PNG once compressed and purified to pipeline-quality specifications.
The 2026 scheme is best understood as a course-correction on SATAT — replacing voluntary OMC offtake with a legally assured, price-guaranteed mechanism to unlock the private capital that SATAT alone could not attract.
National Policy on Biofuels and India's Waste-to-Energy Framework
CBG falls within India's broader biofuels and circular-economy policy architecture, alongside ethanol blending and other biomass-based fuels. The National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 (amended 2022) categorises biofuels and sets blending targets, while the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy's National Bioenergy Programme supports biomass and waste-to-energy projects distinct from the MoPNG-run CBG value chain.
Key Details
- National Policy on Biofuels notified in 2018; amended in 2022 to advance ethanol-blending timelines and expand feedstock categories.
- CBG and ethanol blending are complementary but institutionally separate: ethanol blending is administered largely through the sugar/agriculture and petroleum ministries jointly, while CBG capital/pricing support now sits primarily with MoPNG under GOBARdhan.
- Waste utilised for CBG (cattle dung, agri-residue, municipal solid waste, press mud) also feeds into Swachh Bharat Mission and circular-economy targets.
The assured-price CBG mechanism complements ethanol blending as a second pillar of India's biofuel-substitution strategy for reducing fossil fuel imports and vehicular emissions.
- Scheme outlay: Rs 23,731 crore, effective FY 2026-27 to FY 2035-36.
- Capital assistance for new CBG plants: Rs 1.25 crore per TPD of eligible capacity, capped at Rs 30 crore per project.
- Price support guarantee: minimum 10 years, administered price, up to 100% assured offtake.
- SATAT (2018) original target: 5,000 CBG plants by 2023-24, producing ~15 MMT of CBG annually.
- GOBARdhan (original, 2018) nodal ministry: Jal Shakti; 2026 CBG scheme nodal ministry: Petroleum and Natural Gas.
- Estimated organic/agricultural waste generated annually in India relevant to CBG feedstock: over 62 million tonnes.