Aafrin Kidwai 
Picture credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35604279
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, presenting Union Budget 2023-24 in Parliament, has announced that 500 new ‘waste to wealth’ plants under the GOBARDHAN scheme will be established. Of these plants, 200 will be compressed biogas (CBG) plants, including 75 plants in urban areas, and 300 will be community or cluster-based plants. The 500 plants are to be established at a total investment of Rs 10,000 crore.
The Union Budget 2023 also announced the introduction of a 5 per cent CBG mandate for all entities marketing natural and biogas in India. This may mean that such companies will have to market CBG to the extent of 5 per cent of their volumes.
The government has advocated for increased CBG production and natural gas blending, particularly in the transportation sector that uses compressed natural gas, or CNG, as a fuel.
