At Gasification India 2026, Dr. Kumar calls for a wider policy framework to extend gasification’s benefits to industrial heating and energy efficiency
India’s efforts to strengthen domestic manufacturing and reduce dependence on imported resources have renewed interest in coal and lignite gasification. At Gasification India 2026, a two-day conference organised by Mission Energy Foundation in New Delhi, industry stakeholders discussed the potential to scale up the technology and expand its applications across sectors, including chemicals, fertilisers and industrial thermal energy.
The conference also comes against the backdrop of the Government of India’s target of achieving 100 million tonnes of coal gasification by 2030, supported by incentive schemes worth over ₹46,000 crore. These include the ₹37,500 crore Scheme for Promotion of Surface Coal and Lignite Gasification Projects, aimed at encouraging the development of coal and lignite gasification projects.
Dr. Roger Kumar, Managing Director of CASE Group, called for thermal gasification to receive greater policy attention, drawing on the company’s more than two decades of experience in gasification technology and thermal energy applications.
He said, “Over the past two decades, we have seen gasification evolve as an industrial technology with applications that go well beyond chemical production. Both chemical and thermal gasification can deliver significant efficiency and cost benefits, with thermal applications also offering savings of up to four times under the right operating conditions. Yet policy support has largely focused on chemicals and fertilisers.
Dr Roger added, “If India wants to realise the full potential of gasification, incentives must reflect the value it can deliver across end-use sectors. Extending support, including viability gap funding (VGF) or comparable mechanisms, to thermal applications would help improve project viability, encourage wider industrial adoption and bring more manufacturing sectors into the country’s energy-efficiency and decarbonisation efforts.”
The conference brought together more than 250 senior decision-makers and over 60 expert speakers to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing India’s coal and lignite gasification sector. The deliberations focused on the conditions needed to move projects towards commercial deployment and build a broader industrial ecosystem around gasification.
The need to strengthen domestic supply is reflected in recent fertiliser trade figures. India’s urea imports rose 40.5% to 5.589 million tonnes during April–September 2026, compared with 3.979 million tonnes in the corresponding period a year earlier. Domestic urea production increased 4% during the same period, highlighting the continuing challenge of meeting fertiliser requirements through local manufacturing.
Chemical gasification can convert coal into synthesis gas, which serves as a feedstock for products such as methanol and fertiliser inputs. Thermal applications, meanwhile, can use gasification to meet industrial process-heat requirements. A policy approach that considers both could widen the technology’s reach and support industries seeking more efficient ways to meet their energy needs.
Discussions at the conference covered coal-to-chemicals, hydrogen and underground coal gasification, as well as financing, infrastructure, technology localisation and skill development. These factors will be important in determining whether proposed projects can move towards commercial operation and contribute to domestic manufacturing.
As India works towards its 2030 target, the progress of coal gasification projects will help determine their contribution to fertiliser and chemical production, import substitution and the greater utilisation of domestic coal resources.
