Conversion of Waste Biomass into Gaseous Fuel: Present Status and Challenges in India

India is a rapidly growing country and this created pressure on its natural resources. During its growth and development, different types of wastes are produced through agricultural, industrial, and anthropogenic activities besides increase in energy demand to keep its pace of growth to become a developed nation. Various strategies like landfill, incineration, gasification, and anaerobic digestion (AD) are available to treat as well as to produce energy from the wastes. Production of biogas through AD is one of the best available options due to low energy requirement and eco-friendly nature as compared with other methods. In India, waste to the energy sector may project to a market size of 14 billion ~USD by 2025 with an annual increase of around 7%. In order to capture this untapped source of energy scientific management of waste along with Government policies, schemes and incentives for waste management, renewable energy, agriculture, etc. and their implementations are crucial cornerstones for the promotion of biogas technology and to get renewable energy on sustainable basis. But still a number of challenges are being faced by its stakeholders in India to transform wastes into energy and to secure a clean and green future. Production process of gaseous fuels, management of wastes, its logistics, and recent advancements in Govt. policies and schemes are being discussed in this review article that may help its stakeholders to make India self-reliance in renewable energy along with sustainable growth and development. Graphical Abstract