India's Green Hydrogen offtake commitments are the world's largest, but they are a fraction of the National Green Hydrogen Mission's 2030 target. Examine the gap between signed demand and actual production, and suggest measures to bridge it.

By October 2026, India's Green Hydrogen offtake commitments had reached 5,55,610 MTPA, the world's largest [1]. Yet they cover only about 11% of the National Green Hydrogen Mission's (NGHM) target of 5 MMTPA by 2030 [1][2]. The main problem is no longer finding buyers. It is building plants.

Examining the gap

Mission target (2030)     5.00 MMTPA
SIGHT incentives awarded  0.86 MMTPA
Offtake signed            0.56 MMTPA
Commissioned (Feb 2026)   0.008 MMTPA

Fig: The pipeline shrinks at every stage [1][3]

• Paper vs plants: only about 8,000 TPA had been commissioned, against 8,62,000 TPA awarded incentives. That is under 1% [3].
• Soft commitments: some deals are still "in process" or at the non-binding "head of agreement" stage [1].
• Export skew: over 70% of contracts are for exports, mainly to Japan and Germany. Indian fertiliser plants and refineries still run on grey hydrogen [1].

Why the gap persists

• Cost: in 2025, green hydrogen cost USD 3–6/kg, against USD 1.5–3/kg for grey hydrogen [4].
• Finance: there are few domestic buyers, so loans stay costly [4].
• Water: electrolysis needs large amounts of fresh water [4]. Many sun-rich sites are short of it.
• Subsidy cliff: the ₹19,744 crore outlay is fixed and runs only to FY 2029-30 [1][2].
• Two rulebooks: exporters must meet India's ≤2 kg CO₂-eq/kg standard [6] and also the EU's RFNBO rules [1].

Measures to bridge it

• Track output, not signatures: MNRE should run a public dashboard showing each stage: awarded → financed → built → producing.
• Pooled domestic auctions: the SIGHT Mode 2A fertiliser allocation was raised from 5.5 to 7.5 lakh TPA because demand was strong [5]. The same model can be extended to refineries, steel and shipping.
• An H2Global-style intermediary: SECI could buy long-term from producers and resell to domestic users, covering the price gap with public money [1].
• Firm up preliminary deals into bankable contracts, which lowers financing costs [1].
• Water planning: shared desalination plants and treated wastewater in coastal hubs.
• Trusted certification through BEE-accredited agencies [6], and R&D (₹400 crore) to cut electrolyser costs [2].

India has secured the buyers. It now needs pooled domestic demand, cheaper finance and resource planning to turn those contracts into working plants. Done well, the NGHM can serve both export goals and India's Net Zero 2070 pledge, advancing SDG 7 and SDG 13.