India’s new 20,000 crore Carbon Credit Programme

ENVIRONMENT – CLIMATE CHANGE

18 MARCH 2026

• The Union Budget 2026 announced a ₹20,000 crore carbon credit programme, but people are confused about who it is meant for Industries  or farmers.
• The money is mainly for CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage) for industries.

CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage)

•  “R&D Roadmap for CCUS”, released by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in December 2025 explicitly identifies its target sectors, power, steel, cement, refineries, and chemicals.
• These are labelled as “hard-to-abate” industries where process emissions are concentrated, measurable, and technically challenging to eliminate through renewable energy alone.
• The proposed ₹20,000 crore over five years is earmarked for large-scale deployment of CCUS technologies, essentially capturing carbon dioxide from factory flue gases and either using it industrially or storing it underground.

Why agriculture is NOT included in CCUS

• Farm emissions are spread out (not from one point like a factory) and biological (methane, nitrous oxide)
• CCUS works only for concentrated emissions, like factory smoke.