Green hydrogen is the key to decarbonising India's hard-to-abate sectors. Discuss the scope and the challenges of the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

Fertiliser, refining, steel and shipping use hydrogen as a chemical feedstock, not only as a fuel. Batteries cannot replace it there, but green hydrogen can [1]. The National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) was approved in January 2023 with ₹19,744 crore and is run by MNRE. It targets 5 MMT a year by 2030 [2]. Its scope is wide, but delivery is still the real test.

Scope of the Mission

• Industrial decarbonisation: it replaces grey hydrogen in urea, ammonia and refineries, and coal in hydrogen-based DRI steel. Refineries have been awarded 30 KTPA under SIGHT [3], and there are five steel pilots [2].
• Demand creation: the green ammonia auction discovered ₹55.75/kg for 7.24 lakh MT a year [2].
• Domestic manufacturing: SIGHT gets ₹17,490 crore. 3,000 MW a year of electrolyser manufacturing capacity has been awarded to 15 firms [2].
• Hubs and exports: Kandla, Tuticorin and Paradip were recognised as Green Hydrogen Hubs in October 2025. SECI has signed an MoU with Germany's H2Global [2].
• Climate and economy: by 2030 it aims to avoid about 50 MMT of GHG a year, save over ₹1 lakh crore in imports and create 6 lakh+ jobs [2].

Challenges

• Allocated capacity is not output: 8.62 lakh TPA has been awarded, but only about 8,000 TPA had been commissioned by February 2026 [4].
• Power cost and federal friction: electricity is the main cost of green hydrogen. The ISTS charge waiver covers only plants commissioned by 31 Dec 2030 [1]. Open Access and banking are granted by state DISCOMs, which lose revenue when large industrial buyers leave.
• Finding buyers: hydrogen is costly to transport, and lenders want signed buyers. So far, auctions have covered mainly fertiliser.
• Heavy on subsidy, light on R&D: R&D gets ₹400 crore (about 2% of the outlay) [2]. Electrolysers depend on imported critical minerals such as platinum-group metals and nickel.
• Certification credibility: a fuel counts as green at ≤2 kg CO₂e/kg H₂, averaged over 12 months [1]. Importing countries may apply stricter, time-matched rules.

The NGHM links decarbonisation, manufacturing and export goals. The way forward has five parts:

• pooled SECI auctions for steel and refining;
• time-bound Open Access from the states;
• more R&D funding;
• mutual recognition of GHCI certificates abroad;
• annual reporting of actual output.

If the mission focuses on sectors where only hydrogen works, it can anchor India's Panchamrit net-zero 2070 pledge and SDGs 7 and 13.