OREANDA-NEWS. March 9, 2011. Cooking gas subsidized by the government is undercutting India’s efforts to roll out fuel produced from renewable sources such as agricultural waste, a government minister said.

India has installed plants in the last four years that can produce 930,712 cubic meters of gas from manure and other agricultural refuse, according to a written answer to parliament today from Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah.

That fell short of targets in part because of the increasing availability of subsidized liquid petroleum gas, Abdullah said. India spent an estimated 470 billion rupees (USD 10.4 billion) for the nine months ended Dec. 31 subsidizing fuels, Oil Minister Jaipal Reddy said Jan 31. That calculates to 1.7 billion rupees a day.