An insight to India’s biomass production and biowaste management: Scope and challenges

Being a developing nation and having an agriculture based economy, India has a promising biomass resource. There is a huge scope for establishing bio based economy in India due to the availability of wide varieties and large quantities of biomass. In the current Pan India survey, to assess the availability of different types of biomass, was carried out. A survey was also conducted on the projects and programs financed on the biomass production and conversion through different processes. On the basis of this survey, two separate inventories (Biomass and Projects and programs), were prepared. From the preparation of the biomass inventory, it was found that to a certain extent only agricultural biomass production data is available which includes the major biomass sources from Sugar crops (117.42 MMT) (Million Metric Tons) followed by Oil crops (97.3 MMT) and Starch crops (29.74 MMT). Among biowaste, recorded data on only biodegradable fraction of the waste could be found which was estimated to be 25.547 MTPY (Million Tons per Year). The total budget allotted towards these projects was INR 2213 million (approximately 350 Euros). The present study portrays the availability of the enormous source of varied biomass and its roadmap towards better utilization through collaboration with other countries that might help proper use of all the available biomass resources and establishing the biobased economy in India. © 2016 ETA-Florence Renewable Energies.