India needs stronger physical and digital infrastructure to turn agricultural and industrial residue into a reliable energy feedstock and scale its bioenergy sector, reported Business Word, citing Suhas Baxi, Co-founder and Group CEO of BiofuelCircle.
Speaking about the outlook for biomass, Baxi said the next phase of growth in ethanol, compressed biogas (CBG) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) would depend on organising the fragmented and seasonal supply chain. Decentralised aggregation and storage facilities, known as Biomass Banks, along with digital tools to track availability, inventory, quality and demand, would be critical to connecting farmers with industrial buyers.
He said biomass procurement remained challenging because residue was dispersed across thousands of farms and had to be collected within short harvesting windows. Reliable collection, transparent pricing, accurate measurement and timely digital payments were essential to building farmers’ confidence and making residue a marketable product rather than a disposal burden.
Baxi said technology, including satellite data, weather information and route optimisation, could improve harvest-readiness assessment and coordinate collection, transport and storage. However, digital systems would need to work alongside physical infrastructure and rural partners to improve supply-chain reliability.
On policy, he said initiatives such as the Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme had helped create visibility for the CBG opportunity. Greater long-term certainty on demand, quality standards and procurement mechanisms would encourage private investment in storage, mechanisation, transportation and technology.
He added that scaling the biomass economy would require building trust across the supply chain, with farmers assured of fair measurement and payment and industrial buyers confident about feedstock quality and availability.
