Union Cabinet Approves GOBARdhan as National Circular Bioenergy Scheme

The Union Cabinet approves GOBARdhan as India’s National Circular Bioenergy Scheme. The scheme is presented as a national unified scheme for Compressed Biogas (CBG) and provides a single national framework with digital governance for faster rollout.

GOBARdhan (National Circular Bioenergy Scheme):

Dimension	Key Details
Feedstock covered	The scheme comprises agricultural residue, cattle dung, press mud, municipal organic waste, and biomass.
Outputs	The scheme provides for conversion into clean fuel, organic manure, and rural income.
Six growth engines	The scheme comprises six growth engines: assured CBG offtake, stable pricing, capital assistance, pipeline infrastructure, credit guarantee, and CBG ecosystem challenge fund.
Assured CBG offtake	It provides for a dedicated framework and a blending obligation trajectory of 3% in FY 2026-27, 4% in FY 2027-28, and 5% from FY 2028-29 onwards in CNG (Transport) and PNG (Domestic) segments.
Stable pricing	It provides for an administered price of ₹2,110 per MMBTU supported through a government-backed pricing framework with a 10-year horizon for durable revenue certainty.
Capital assistance	It provides for up to ₹2 crore per ton per day (TPD) capacity for greenfield projects and support for brownfield expansions.
Pipeline infrastructure	It provides for cluster-based and standalone pipelines connecting CBG plants with trunk pipelines and City Gas Distribution networks.
Credit guarantee	It provides for a mechanism to expand institutional credit, reduce collateral, and support MSMEs and women entrepreneurs.
CBG ecosystem challenge fund	For district-level support for feedstock mapping, infrastructure, technology adoption, manure value addition, and awareness.
Implementation mechanism	Implementation provides for faster rollout through one national framework and digital governance.
Impact and outcomes listed	The scheme provides for outcomes including ten-fold growth in domestic CBG, reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels, large-scale private participation with stable returns, new income opportunities for farmers, cooperatives, and entrepreneurs, productive use of residue, dung, and municipal organic waste, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and greater production and utilization of FOM and LFOM.
Organic manure forms	The scheme comprises Fermented Organic Manure (FOM) and Liquid Fermented Organic Manure (LFOM) as organic manure forms.