The Union Budget 2026 marked a renewed push toward decarbonisation, with the government committing Rs 20,000 crore over the next five years to scale up carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technologies.

Speaking in Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government plans to boost CCUS technologies to further readiness in five industrial sectors: power, steel, cement, refineries, and chemicals. Globally, investments in CCUS have grown as countries seek ways to curb emissions. The technology captures carbon dioxide from power plants and industrial units before it enters the atmosphere, either storing it permanently or using it to produce synthetic fuels, fertilizers, construction materials, and industrial gases. 

While renewable energy remains central to India’s climate action strategy, the government is increasingly focusing on CCUS to manage emissions from hard-to-abate sectors such as power, which relies heavily on fossil fuels like coal. These technologies are still at a nascent stage in India, but the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have begun small-scale projects to test and deploy CCUS in real industrial settings.