Current geopolitical events have led to extreme spikes in both CNG and LPG prices. This has led to LPG shortages throughout the country. Multiple restaurants have shut down. PSU's such as Bharat Gas are quoting lead time of 30 days for delivery of LPG cylinders, plus price have gone up by 14%. Private /black cylinder cost are 2-3x. This is a crisis.

Hydrogen is the only fuel and feedstock source we have access to without having to import anything. China has understood the same and is pushing aggressive policies and a huge amount of funds to make this a reality.

I think to understand why hydrogen is so important people need to understand that it is one of the most critical feedstock gas which affects everything from the petroleum industry to plastics to semiconductors. Almost everything we use or consume on a daily basis, uses hydrogen at some stage of production. But >96% of H2 is currently produced using SMR which produces over 10tonnes of CO2 per tonne of H2. Considering that globally almost 100 million tonnes of H2 is used annually, this amounts to a Billion (with a B) tonnes of CO2 emissions. To put this into perspective, this is more than the entire global aviation industry! And even if your reaction to this is 'So what?' (it really shouldn't be); the geopolitical reality is that this SMR-produced 'grey H2' is produced from imported CNG!!

So whether you consider its environmental impact or national security implications, green H2 is a necessity, not a nice-to-have.

NGHM is an excellent step by the GOI to push this, but we need further upstream and downstream support to make indigenous green hydrogen and related infrastructure a reality. A critical part of this is ensuring that Indian companies are given the opportunity to grow and build a strong eco-system for the entire green H2 pipeline, from SOTA electrocatalysts and electrolyzer technologies for efficient green H2 production to advanced composites for storage and transport.

The current de-facto approach in Indian industry is to import the electrolyzer stack and other critical components such as rectifier, analyser systems etc. from China/Japan/EU and do the low-value work of setting up the rest of the BOP (a.k.a pumps, pipes and tanks) in India.

This 'Make Abroad, Assemble Here' approach might be cheaper in the short-term, but in the long-term it will kill the fledgling Indian companies in the Hydrogen Ecosystem, just like what happened with solar cells, semiconductors and Li-ion cells in the past.

If we want to ensure our country's energy independence, the time to act is now.