NDDB's 100-Plant CBG Expansion Plan Highlights India's Accelerating Biogas Infrastructure Development

June 23, 2026

In June 2026, NDDB Chairman Meenesh Shah announced that the National Dairy Development Board is targeting at least 100 compressed biomethane gas (CBG) plants across India as its next phase of expansion. The announcement builds on a live pilot that is already generating results, and it coincides with India crossing a significant milestone just three days ago: CBG blending in CNG and PNG networks has reached nearly 2%, up from 1%, with the government now on track to meet its 3% blending target for FY 2026-27.

Together, these developments confirm that biogas infrastructure development in India is no longer a distant ambition. It is an active, growing, and increasingly commercial sector.

What NDDB is Building and How the Model Works

The NDDB's CBG programme started as a three-way collaboration in September 2023. NDDB, Suzuki R&D Centre India, and Banas Dairy signed a tripartite agreement to establish four dung-based biogas plants in Gujarat's Banaskantha district.

The model is straightforward. Dairy farmers supply cattle dung and are paid up to INR 1 per kg for it. The dung is collected and brought to a centralised plant. Each plant processes around 100 metric tonnes of dung per day. Biogas is produced and then purified to at least 95% methane purity.

This purified gas is compressed into bio-CNG, which performs like conventional CNG in vehicles. The remaining slurry is converted into organic fertiliser, which farmers can use or sell. This circular model benefits farmers twice, once from dung sales and again from organic manure, while also reducing India's dependence on imported chemical fertilisers and fossil fuels.

Since the initial pilot, NDDB has commissioned three additional plants in the Banas region, each handling 100 tonnes of dung per day. Two more plants are under construction. A 100-tonne plant in Varanasi is also operational, producing 4,000-5,000 cubic metres of biogas daily, with cow dung collected directly from farmers' doorsteps. MOUs have been signed with multiple dairy cooperatives, and funding arrangements are in place to support national expansion.

The 100-plant target is NDDB's most ambitious statement yet, and if delivered, the combined network would process nearly 10,000 metric tonnes of dung per day, producing an estimated 400-500 tonnes of CBG daily.

The Broader CBG Landscape: Where India Stands Today

NDDB's programme sits within a much larger national push for CBG infrastructure. As of June 2026, India has commissioned 210 CBG plants. Another 324 are under construction. And 1,261 projects are registered but yet to begin. This data comes directly from the Ministry of Petroleum's Gobardhan portal.

Uttar Pradesh leads with 80 plants under construction, followed by Maharashtra with 46, Gujarat with 35, and Karnataka with 25. The SATAT scheme, launched in 2018 with a target of 5,000 plants by 2024, set the initial framework. That target was not met, but it created the policy and procurement infrastructure that is now supporting accelerating deployment. India targets 750 CBG plants commissioned by 2028.

The blending mandate is creating direct commercial demand. India is targeting 3% CBG blending in CNG and domestic PNG for FY 2026-27, rising to 4% in FY 2027-28 and 5% in FY 2028-29. CBG sales reached approximately 0.66 million metric standard cubic metres per day (MMSCMD) in April 2026 and 0.63 MMSCMD in May, close to double the previous blending level. City gas distribution companies are required to purchase CBG from producers, creating a guaranteed offtake mechanism that materially de-risks project economics for investors.

The Indian Biogas Association (IBA) expects the CBG sector to attract INR 5,000 crore (approximately USD 595 million) in new investment in FY 2026-27 alone. The global CBG industry is expected to reach USD 3-4 billion in India by 2026 and grow to USD 5 billion by 2030. The IBA has separately called for a 7% GST reduction on CBG infrastructure, estimating a 4-5% increase in new investments would follow. All of these numbers reflect a sector that has moved firmly from the policy stage to the investment stage.

The Iran War Factor: Geopolitics is Accelerating Biogas Investment

India's CBG push has received an unexpected accelerant in 2026. The Iran-US conflict, which began in late February 2026, disrupted Strait of Hormuz shipping and sent crude oil prices above USD 113 per barrel. This is exactly the kind of geopolitical shock that energy analysts have long flagged as the trigger that makes domestic renewable fuel alternatives commercially compelling at scale, not just environmentally desirable.

Senior officials at CSTEP (Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy) have publicly stated that the West Asia tensions highlight the urgency of India strengthening domestic energy sources, with CBG among the most viable near-term options. NDDB's 100-plant programme, announced in this environment, carries explicit energy security framing alongside its rural income and sustainability messaging.

The Infrastructure Gap and the Execution Challenge

India's CBG sector has a large infrastructure gap to close. The feedstock exists: India has over 300 million cattle and buffalo, producing enormous volumes of dung daily. Agricultural residue, municipal solid waste, press mud from sugar mills, and food processing waste are all viable additional feedstocks. The SATAT scheme has documented potential biogas output of up to 62 million metric tonnes of bio-CNG annually, far exceeding current production of around 3.2 billion cubic metres per year.

The bottlenecks are operational. Feedstock aggregation at scale, collecting dung from thousands of small farms across a wide catchment area, requires logistics infrastructure and supply chain management. Biogas purification to 95% methane purity requires technical equipment and skilled operations. Grid connectivity for gas injection into city gas networks is not available in all locations.

These are solvable problems, the NDDB model's success in Banaskantha proves that. But they require competent engineering, well-designed logistics, and project management teams that understand both the dairy sector and the energy infrastructure requirements of compressed biogas plants in India. The quality of individual project design and execution will define which of the 1,261 registered projects make it into commissioning and which remain on the Gobardhan portal indefinitely.

India has 10,000 metric tonnes of cattle dung available daily, and a blending mandate that needs it. NDDB's 100-plant plan is how rural waste becomes national energy security.

IMARC Engineering's Perspective

The NDDB's 100-plant CBG expansion is a clear signal that biogas plant development in India has crossed from pilot to programme. What that means in practice is a growing pipeline of greenfield CBG plant projects, each requiring site selection, feedstock logistics design, civil engineering, process plant design, biogas purification system specification, gas compression equipment, and regulatory approvals. These are complex multi-discipline projects.

They require an engineering team that understands both the process side, anaerobic digestion, gas upgrading, compression, and the civil and utility infrastructure that supports it. At IMARC Engineering, we support CBG project developers, dairy cooperatives, and waste-to-energy investors with feasibility studies, DPR preparation, process engineering, equipment specification, procurement management, and commissioning for compressed biogas plants in India.

As India moves from 210 commissioned plants toward the 750-plant target by 2028, the execution quality of individual CBG projects will define whether the sector's commercial promise is realised at scale. That is the engineering challenge we are equipped to solve.