Scheme for Promotion of Surface Coal / Lignite Gasification Projects

Scheme for Promotion of Surface Coal / Lignite Gasification Projects

Scheme for Promotion of Surface Coal / Lignite Gasification Projects

Why in News:

Coal ministry organizes roadshow on surface coal, lignite gasification promotion scheme.

Salient Features of the Scheme:

The scheme aims to incentivize new surface coal/lignite gasification projects to produce syngas and downstream derivatives.

This framework directly supports the overarching national target of gasifying 100 MT of coal by 2030.

Incentive Structure:

Financial assistance is capped at 20% of the cost of Plant and Machinery.

Project Cap: Maximum ₹5,000 crore per project.

Product Cap: Maximum ₹9,000 crore for any single product (except Synthetic Natural Gas and Urea).

Entity Cap: Maximum ₹12,000 crore for a single group across all projects.

Prelims Ready Notes- Coal Gasification:

Coal gasification is a clean coal technology that thermo-chemically converts raw coal or lignite into a versatile gaseous mixture called synthesis gas or syngas.

A synthetic gas composed mainly of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and water vapour (H₂O).

Syngas serves as a foundational feedstock to- chemical fertilizers (urea and ammonia), petrochemicals, methanol, synthetic natural gas, hydrogen, and direct reduced iron (DRI) for steel production.