From Powerhouse to Global Leadership: Why India Needs a National Biogas Mission
India stands at a pivotal moment in its clean energy transition. As the country races to secure energy independence, decarbonise hard-to-abate industrial sectors, and manage mounting organic waste, the biogas sector offers a rare convergence of solutions. This message resonated strongly at the World Biogas Association INDIA Congress 2025, held on 3 – 4 December at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, which brought together more than 250 delegates and 70 speakers from government, industry, finance, international institutions, and academia.
The Congress was notable not just for its scale, but also for the calibre of its participants. Senior leaders from the Ministries of New and Renewable Energy and Petroleum and Natural Gas, global institutions such as the IEA, IRENA, the World Bank, UNIDO, GIZ, state governments, public sector undertakings, and leading research and policy institutions shared a common view: biogas has moved beyond pilot projects and policy experiments. What it now requires is decisive, coordinated national action to achieve its full potential and make India a global leader.
Over two days of intensive discussions, biogas was highlighted as a key part of India’s energy security and circular economy. Unlike many renewable energy sources, biogas tackles multiple issues at once. It turns agricultural residue, municipal solid waste, industrial effluents, and livestock manure into clean energy, while producing digestate that can replace chemical fertilizers. It supports decentralized energy systems, bolsters rural livelihoods, reduces methane emissions, and provides a credible way to decarbonize transportation, industry, maritime, and even aviation fuels.
Yet, despite this promise, India’s biogas sector remains deeply fragmented. Policies are spread across various ministries, implementation differs significantly across states, and access to finance remains limited by perceived risks related to feedstock security, offtake agreements, and long-term profitability. Participants at the Congress repeatedly stressed that minor policy tweaks are no longer enough. What is needed is a cohesive policy and regulatory framework to coordinate policy, capital, infrastructure, human skills, and markets at scale.
This is why one of the most significant outcomes of the Congress was a collective call to launch a National Biogas Mission. Such a mission could do for biogas what previous national initiatives accomplished for solar and green hydrogen: offer long-term policy stability, clear objectives, targeted financing, and effective institutional coordination.
A National Biogas Mission should be based on proven global foundations. Initiatives like the WBA’s flagship program #MakingBiogasHappen and its key projects, the Global Biogas Regulatory Framework (GBRF) and the Anaerobic Digestion Certification Scheme International (ADCS International), provide practical building blocks adaptable to India’s context. Learning from established biogas markets, these frameworks can help speed up deployment while maintaining quality, safety, and investor confidence. International collaboration, alongside strong domestic leadership, can greatly reduce India’s learning curve.
First, the mission must establish a clear national roadmap with time-bound deployment targets for biogas and biomethane across sectors, including transport, industry, and city gas distribution. Second, it should be supported by a dedicated National Biogas Fund to unlock blended finance through guarantees, risk-sharing instruments, and concessional capital, thereby lowering project financing costs.
Third, the mission must focus on standards and market development. Robust standards and certification systems, lifecycle assessment methods, and integration with carbon markets are crucial to building credibility and helping Indian biogas compete globally. Equally important is ensuring reliable feedstock supply chains and expanding markets for digestate and fermented organic manure, which are vital for project bankability and long-term sustainability.
Finally, the mission must invest in people and institutions. Building capacity at state and municipal levels, strengthening public–private partnerships, promoting indigenous technologies, and placing a strong emphasis on women’s participation and green job creation will determine whether the sector delivers inclusive growth.
The World Biogas Association INDIA Congress 2025 highlighted that the necessary components are already in place. India has ample feedstock, expanding gas infrastructure, strong industrial demand, and a lively entrepreneurial ecosystem. What is lacking is a unified national effort to turn this potential into global leadership.
If India is serious about becoming a global leader in clean energy while addressing its waste and climate issues, a National Biogas Mission is now essential. It is the logical next step, and the time to act is now.