Bokakhat Water Hyacinth BioCBG Complex, Assam | World's First Water Hyacinth Biorefinery

Section 1 · The crisis

Why the world's worst aquatic weed has beaten Assam for 130 years

Eichhornia crassipes reproduces three ways at once — and conventional control fails against all of them. Eliminating one reproduction mode has zero effect; the other two continue.

7 days

Time for the plant population to double — 1 plant becomes 1,000 by Month 3

1 → 64 ha

Spread in a single year; an entire beel covered by Month 6

5,000

Seeds per plant — viable in sediment for 20–30 years

pH 4.5–5.0

Decomposing mats acidify water enough to kill all aquatic life

Why every previous method failed

Mechanical cutting accelerates spread — every fragment regrows into a full plant within 7 days, and monsoon floods carry mats hundreds of kilometres to reinfest cleared areas.
Chemicals poison the beel — while roots already accumulate cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury from agricultural runoff.
Decomposition is a climate engine — the mats release methane, hydrogen sulphide and ammonia; Assam's beels emit 8.5 lakh T of CH₄ a year, equal to 2.38 Cr T CO₂e.
Only removal that exceeds regrowth works — continuous industrial harvesting at 1,200 TPD does this for the first time in 130 years; beel ecology then restores naturally in ~18 months.

The human cost

45,000 ha → 1,20,000 ha — infestation growth from 2000 to 2026, a 2.7× spread across 3,513 beels; an area larger than Delhi.
3.5 lakh fishing families hit — average family income crashed 64%, from ₹22,000 to ₹8,000 a month.
₹1,880 Cr a year in economic losses across fisheries, transport, irrigation, flood damage and tourism.
Healthcare burden — stagnant, mosquito-breeding mats around hyacinth-infested beels impose an estimated ₹180 Cr/yr in health costs on surrounding communities.

Section 2 · The solution

The circular complex — zero waste, four LOI-backed streams

Every tonne harvested is monetised four ways. Nutrients return to Assam's farmlands via FOM & LFOM, closing the fertiliser-runoff cycle that feeds the weed in the first place.

Harvest — 1,200 TPDBerky/Truxor harvester fleet clears the beels faster than regrowth.

PretreatmentSix Steer Energy extruders process hyacinth + 45 TPD bamboo co-substrate.

Anaerobic digestionBiogas generation stabilised by the bamboo co-substrate.

CBG — 20 TPDUpgrading & compression under GOBARdhan; proposed 100% NRL offtake.

Dry ice — 25 TPDFermentation CO₂ captured cryogenically for SICGIL — carbon-negative by design.

FOM 60 TPD · LFOM 800 KLDSolids & liquids become Prabhat-offtaken organic fertilisers.

Revenue — diversified & LOI-guaranteed

Stream	Volume	Effective price	₹ Cr/yr	Share
CBG (GOBARdhan · NRL)	20 TPD · 6,600 t/yr	₹2,110/MMBtu ≈ ₹100/kg	66.00	33.0%
Cryogenic dry ice (SICGIL LOI)	25 TPD · 8,250 t/yr	₹30/kg	24.75	12.4%
FOM (Prabhat LOI + MDA)	60 TPD · 19,800 t/yr	₹8.50/kg incl. MDA	16.83	8.4%
LFOM (Prabhat LOI + subsidy)	800 KLD · 2,64,000 KL/yr	₹3.50/L incl. subsidy	92.40	46.2%
Gross revenue at 100% utilisation (330 days)			199.98	100%

₹120 Cr

Year 1 revenue ramp

₹150 Cr

Year 2

₹170 Cr

Year 3

₹199.98 Cr

Year 4 onward — full utilisation

Supplementary upside (not in base case): captive power saving ₹3.08 Cr/yr · beel-clearance contract potential ₹6.60 Cr/yr · carbon credits ~₹4.6 Cr/yr under VCS / Gold Standard with a Ramsar + UNESCO Kaziranga premium.

Section 3 · The lifeline

Before & after — the same beel, eighteen months apart

Once harvesting outpaces regrowth, sunlight and oxygen return to the water — and with them, everything the water carries: fish, boats, irrigation, and income.

Before — the crisisA beel sealed shutDense mats block sunlight and oxygen; decomposition acidifies the water, releases methane and hydrogen sulphide, kills aquatic life and traps boats.

After — the lifeline restoredOpen water, working boatsContinuous harvesting feeds the biorefinery while the beel breathes again — oxygen and fish stocks recover, boats and irrigation canals reopen.

Fishing incomes recoverFrom the ₹8,000/month crash back toward the ₹22,000/month norm as 17,500 families return to open water.

Waterways & irrigation reopenCountry boats, ferries and irrigation canals move again — reconnecting villages the mats had cut off.

Healthier communitiesStagnant, mosquito-breeding mats give way to flowing water, easing the regional disease burden.

Kaziranga tourism securedRestored buffer beels protect the UNESCO landscape and the visitor economy it anchors.

27.6 lakh T

CO₂e avoided every year via methane capture & digestion

18,000 ha

Kaziranga-landscape wetland restored — Ramsar + UNESCO pathway

352 + 4,800

Direct jobs + indirect livelihoods supported

50 units

Assam replication programme 2030–33, funded from accruals

Section 4 · People

The Bokakhat Skill Development Centre — adjacent to the plant

On the same campus as the biorefinery, YGPL is setting up the Bokakhat Skill Development Centre — the first industry-embedded skill centre in Northeast India's green economy. Trainees learn on a working plant, not in a classroom simulation, and graduate straight into the jobs the region is creating.

What it teaches: biorefinery operations, plant instrumentation, cold-chain logistics and industrial safety.
Who certifies: NIELIT Jorhat, IIT Guwahati and SICGIL India.
Where graduates go: priority placement in the Bokakhat Biorefinery, the 50-unit replication programme and NRL's ecosystem — cutting regional training costs by ₹2–3 Cr/yr.
How it's funded: proposed under NRL's CSR programme (₹3–4 Cr/yr for 5 years into the Biorefinery & Skill Development SPV) together with the harvester fleet.

450+

Locals trained every year

1st

Industry-embedded green-economy skill centre in NE India

3

Certifying institutions

17,500

Fishing families uplifted across the landscape

Section 5 · Alongside NRL

A refinery and a biorefinery, 15 km apart

Numaligarh Refinery Limited is the natural anchor: the site sits in NRL's own backyard in Golaghat district, and the partnership reuses the exact support template NRL extended to its own bamboo bio-refinery ecosystem. Five direct requests are before NRL for in-principle Board consideration — each mirrored by a concrete gain for NRL itself.

What Yogan Green requests of NRL

Land — 15 acres in the Bokakhat Industrial Area: notified land, clear title, adjacent to NRL. Saves land CapEx; co-location enables shared utilities and security.
Power at 50% tariff (₹3.50/kWh, Assam Industrial Policy 2021) — saves ₹3.08 Cr/yr; grid drawal is standby only, with captive tail-gas gensets and 500 kWp rooftop solar meeting base demand.
Process water & steam at fixed cost plus 30 TPD bamboo powder (or NRL-facilitated 40–45 TPD local bamboo at NRL's procurement cost) — avoids ₹4–5 Cr water-treatment CapEx.
100% CBG offtake for 10 years — 20 TPD (≈1,000 MMBtu/day) at the GOBARdhan administered ₹2,110/MMBtu. NRL commits to volume, not price risk — de-risking ₹66 Cr/yr, 33% of revenue.
CSR investment of ₹3–4 Cr/yr for 5 years (₹15–20 Cr — under 1% of NRL's annual CSR obligation on a PAT exceeding ₹2,000 Cr) into the harvester fleet and Skill Development Centre.
Equity invitation — a 20–35% SPV stake with a board seat: venture-grade returns with infrastructure-grade risk.

What NRL gains in return

CBG Blending Obligation compliance at its doorstep — CBO-compliant CBG 15 km away with zero logistics risk as mandates climb 1% » 3% » 4%.
A flagship ESG story in the Kaziranga landscape — restoration of the beels that secure the region NRL operates in, with reportable outcomes: 27.6 lakh T CO₂e/yr avoided, 18,000 ha restored, 17,500 families uplifted.
Food-grade CO₂ synergy — the dry-ice stream complements NRL's existing bio-refinery CO₂ capability.
A captive trained talent pool — 450+ certified locals annually with priority placement, cutting NRL's training costs by ₹2–3 Cr/yr.
Scope-3 & carbon co-claiming — VCS / Gold Standard credits with a Ramsar + UNESCO premium (~₹4.6 Cr/yr indicative); joint G20, COP and ASEAN visibility.
Anchor offtaker of first resort for the 50-unit Assam replication programme — positioning NRL as India's leading green PSU.

NRL is a Public Sector Undertaking: each request requires consideration and approval by the NRL Board and, where applicable, its shareholders. Requested next steps: in-principle Board consideration; a joint NRL–Yogan Green working group on land, utilities and offtake term sheets; CSR committee evaluation; and a letter of comfort on offtake to support the Government of Assam MoU and financial closure.

Section 6 · CapEx & funding

A bankable ₹190 Crore structure — 45% grant & subsidy funded

Debt:equity of 65:35 at closure. On receipt of ₹85 Cr in subsidies — GOBARdhan CFA ₹40 Cr (₹2 Cr/TPD × 20 TPD) plus the Assam capital subsidy of ₹45 Cr (30% of eligible FCI of ₹150 Cr) — the ₹23 Cr unsecured loan is retired in full and the term loan prepays down to ₹61.5 Cr.

Source of funds (financial closure)	₹ Cr	Share
Term loan @ ~9% p.a. · 1-yr moratorium + 8-yr repayment	123.5	65.0%
AIG Direct LLC CCDs — US$3.0M @ ₹95/US$	28.5	15.0%
Promoter group & HNI equity	15.0	7.9%
Promoter / HNI unsecured loan (interest-free quasi-equity)	23.0	12.1%
Total — debt:equity 65:35	190.0	100%

CapEx head	₹ Cr
Land & site development (15 acres requested from NRL)	0.0
Harvesting fleet (Berky/Truxor) + solar drying yards	28.0
Steer Energy extruders — 6 nos, pretreatment	24.0
Anaerobic digestion + CBG upgrading & compression (20 TPD)	62.0
Cryogenic CO₂ capture + dry ice plant (25 TPD)	30.0
FOM / LFOM processing, standardisation & storage	14.0
Civil, electrical & instrumentation	18.0
Contingency, pre-operative & working capital margin	14.0
Total project cost	190.0

₹85 Cr

Subsidies — GOBARdhan ₹40 Cr + Assam ₹45 Cr

₹61.5 Cr

Term loan after subsidy prepayment

60%+

Return profile on promoter equity · 6.5–12.7x multiple

2.5 yrs

Payback on ₹134.8 Cr EBITDA at 74.9% margin

Changing the Sustainability of Assam — one beel at a time.