The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is reportedly set to notify a high-level committee to expedite the development and utilization of hydrogen as a fuel.
Scientists, industry leaders, policymakers from all concerned ministries will be part of the panel that is likely to be headed by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar.
This committee will review the status as well as explore the feasibility of application, transportation, handling, production, safety aspects and usage of hydrogen fuel, reports Economic Times.
According to the report, Kumar had already held two rounds of discussions with experts and the stakeholder ministries on developing a roadmap to introduce hydrogen as a fuel.
The development comes as the government is looking for reducing dependence on imported fuel. Currently, India is largely dependent on imported fuels for meeting its domestic demand.
According to industry estimates, producing one kilogram of hydrogen through solar energy will cost only Rs 70 even with the currently available technologies. This is still less that the present fuel prices that range above Rs 80 per litre.
Hence, a policy roadmap for hydrogen will be prepared by the committee and it will then be sent to the cabinet for further approval. Hydrogen is considered to be the cleanest amongst all fuels. It is also around three times more energetic than both gasoline and diesel. The overall financial allotment for this project will be figured out upon the finalization of the policy roadmap.
“The National Hydrogen Mission is the work in progress. While storage of hydrogen remains a challenge, production of hydrogen fuel will be completely indigenous with India having enough solar production capacity as well as electrolysers,” NITI Aayog member VK Saraswat was quoted in the report as saying.
It should be noted that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the launch of a National Hydrogen Mission in 2021-22 in her budget speech for generating hydrogen from green power sources.