Green Hydrogen Project Setup in India: SIGHT, MNRE, Structure

India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission has moved from policy announcement to live registration and bidding activity, with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) now running competitive selection rounds for both electrolyser manufacturing and green hydrogen production incentives. The Mission, approved by the Union Cabinet in January 2023 with an outlay of ₹19,744 crore, targets at least 5 million metric tonnes (MMT) of annual green hydrogen production by 2030, an associated 125 GW of new renewable energy capacity, over ₹8 lakh crore in cumulative investment, and more than 6 lakh jobs. An energy developer entering this sector runs two workstreams in parallel: incorporating an entity that can legally hold renewable energy and hydrogen production licences, and qualifying that same entity for MNRE’s Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) programme. Getting the entity type wrong after a SECI tender is already open, or structuring foreign equity without checking FEMA downstream investment rules, costs a project months it does not have on a scheme with a fixed five-year incentive tenure.

What is the best company structure for a green hydrogen company in India?

A private limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 is the standard structure for a green hydrogen venture in India. It permits 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) under the automatic route, meets SECI’s bidder eligibility criteria for SIGHT tenders, and allows equity issuance to venture capital funds, green bonds and development finance institutions, none of which an LLP can offer on comparable terms.

Which entity structure suits a green hydrogen project?

A private limited company is the only structure among the common options that clears every gate a green hydrogen developer will hit: SECI bid eligibility, FDI automatic route access, and follow-on equity fundraising. An LLP is cheaper to run and works for a pure services or consulting arm, but it cannot issue equity shares, which rules it out the moment a developer plans a SIGHT bid, a venture round, or a joint venture with a foreign electrolyser manufacturer.

Where a global technology partner (a Plug Power, Nel Hydrogen, ITM Power or Siemens Energy type of counterparty) is involved, the choice is usually between a wholly owned subsidiary of the Indian promoter with a technology licence from the foreign partner, or a joint venture company where the foreign partner holds direct equity. Both routes stay within a private limited company; the difference is at the shareholding and FDI reporting level, covered in the next section.

Entity structure comparison for green hydrogen ventures

For nearly every energy developer reading this, the private limited company is the answer. The decision that actually needs advice is how foreign capital sits inside that company.

How do you incorporate a green hydrogen company with MCA?

Incorporation of a green hydrogen company follows the standard Companies Act, 2013 process through the SPICe+ web form, with two points needing hydrogen-specific attention: the object clause and the timeline discipline before an INC-20A default. The steps run as follows.

1. Digital Signature Certificates (DSC). Every proposed director and subscriber needs a Class 3 DSC for electronic filing on the MCA portal.
2. Director Identification Number (DIN). Applied for through SPICe+ Part A for first-time directors, along with name reservation.
3. Name reservation. File SPICe+ Part A. For a hydrogen production or electrolyser company, avoid a name that implies a licence or government endorsement not yet held (for example, avoid words suggesting a completed SIGHT allocation before the bid is won).
4. SPICe+ Part B filing. Covers incorporation, PAN, TAN, EPFO, ESIC and GST registration in a single form. The Memorandum of Association’s object clause should explicitly cover electrolysis, green hydrogen and green ammonia production, storage, transportation, and sale or export, and, where relevant, electrolyser manufacturing, because MNRE and SECI scrutiny during bid evaluation checks whether the incorporated object matches the scheme applied for (Companies Act, 2013, Section 4). The principal business activity should be filed under an NIC code that matches the actual activity: NIC 35106 for electricity production from hydrogen, NIC 20111 where the entity manufactures industrial gases including hydrogen, or NIC 27101 where the entity manufactures electrolysers, generators or related electrical machinery. Filing under a generic power generation code without one of these specific codes is a common reason evaluators ask for clarification during a SECI bid.
5. Certificate of Incorporation and PAN/TAN. Issued by the Registrar of Companies on approval.
6. Bank account and paid-up capital. Open the current account and bring in subscribed share capital.
7. Commencement of business (Form INC-20A). Must be filed within 180 days of incorporation, declaring receipt of subscription money (Companies Act, 2013, Section 10A). A company cannot borrow or commence business without this, and failure to file within the deadline exposes the company and officers to penalty and risks the Registrar striking the company off under Section 248.
8. GST registration. Mandatory for a manufacturing or production entity; state-wise registration follows if the project spans multiple states.
9. Import Export Code (IEC). Required from the DGFT if the entity will import electrolyser stacks, membrane electrode assemblies or other components, or export green hydrogen, green ammonia or derivatives; this is a separate registration from GST and is often overlooked until a shipment is already blocked at customs.

Energy developers who already have a group holding company in India often incorporate the hydrogen entity as a wholly owned or majority-owned subsidiary rather than a fresh standalone entity, which keeps the group’s existing banking and compliance infrastructure usable while ring-fencing the project’s SIGHT and SECI obligations inside one entity.

Is 100% FDI allowed in green hydrogen companies in India?

Yes. Green hydrogen and green ammonia production, along with electrolyser manufacturing, fall under the power and renewable energy sector, where 100% FDI is permitted under the automatic route with no government approval required, under the Consolidated FDI Policy and the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-debt Instruments) Rules, 2019. This is what makes the private limited company structure necessary: it is the only vehicle that can actually receive and report this equity.

Two compliance points follow directly from the automatic route:

• FC-GPR filing. When shares are allotted to a foreign investor, the Indian company must file Form FC-GPR with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through the FIRMS portal within 30 days of allotment (RBI Master Direction on Reporting under FEMA, 1999). Late filing attracts compounding under FEMA, and in practice can run to a material percentage of the transaction value depending on the delay.
• Pricing guidelines. Shares issued to a foreign investor must be priced at or above fair value as determined under an internationally accepted pricing methodology (FEMA Non-Debt Instruments Rules, Rule 21). An undervalued allotment to a technology partner taking a strategic stake is a common structuring error that surfaces only at the AD bank reporting stage.

Where the foreign electrolyser manufacturer wants both a technology licensing arrangement and a minority equity stake, the licensing fee and the equity subscription need to be documented as two separate, arm’s-length transactions. Bundling them into a single “technology-for-equity” swap without a fair valuation report is a frequent point of RBI and tax scrutiny.

What is the SIGHT scheme under the National Green Hydrogen Mission?

The Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) programme is MNRE’s financial mechanism under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, carrying a combined outlay of ₹17,490 crore across two components: incentives for domestic electrolyser manufacturing, and a direct production-linked incentive for green hydrogen, both implemented through SECI as the nodal agency (MNRE, SIGHT Scheme Guidelines).

SIGHT programme: components at a glance

Bidders under both components must be registered Indian companies at the time of bid submission and must meet the technical criteria set out in the National Green Hydrogen Standard notified by MNRE, which caps non-biogenic greenhouse gas emissions at 2 kg CO2 equivalent per kg of hydrogen, averaged over 12 months, for the hydrogen to qualify as “green.” Compliance with this threshold is verified through the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme of India (GHCI), launched by MNRE in April 2025, which requires annual third-party verification by an Accredited Carbon Verification agency; MNRE launched a dedicated Certification Portal for this in June 2026 to digitise the process. Certification under GHCI is mandatory for any producer receiving government incentives such as SIGHT, so it sits alongside, not after, the SECI bid process rather than being a separate later step.

Component I is open to four electrolyser technologies, and the choice between them affects a bidder’s capex per MW and the local value addition trajectory it can realistically commit to over the five-year tenure, though it does not change SECI’s core eligibility test, which turns on the National Green Hydrogen Standard’s carbon intensity threshold as certified under GHCI, not on which technology is deployed.

Electrolyser technologies eligible under SIGHT Component I

A bidder’s technology choice is a capex and offtake decision for the board, not a compliance decision for SECI; the LVA commitment made in the bid is what gets enforced under the scheme agreement regardless of which of these four technologies is deployed.

How do you register for SIGHT incentives through SECI?

Registration for a SIGHT incentive is not a standalone application; it happens through participation in a SECI Request for Selection (RfS), and the entity must already exist and be capitalised before it can bid. The practical sequence for an energy developer is:

1. Incorporate and capitalise the bidding entity first. SECI’s eligibility criteria require the bidder to be an Indian-registered company (or a consortium of such companies) with the net worth and financial capability specified in the RfS document, not a pre-incorporation promoter group.
2. Track live RfS notifications on the SECI and National Green Hydrogen Mission portals; tranches open on a rolling basis, not on a fixed annual calendar.
3. Register under the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme of India (GHCI) via MNRE’s Certification Portal and arrange annual third-party verification by an Accredited Carbon Verification agency; certification against the 2 kg CO2 equivalent per kg threshold is mandatory for any bidder receiving SIGHT incentives, so this should run alongside bid preparation rather than after allocation.
4. Submit the earnest money deposit (EMD) and bid quoting either the manufacturing incentive sought (Component I) or the production incentive sought (Component II), depending on which RfS is open.
5. Meet local value addition or carbon intensity thresholds as specified for that tranche, and commit to the reporting cadence MNRE prescribes for disbursement.
6. Execute the scheme agreement with SECI on successful allocation, which then governs disbursement, penalties for shortfall, and clawback conditions if LVA or production targets are missed in a given year.

Because bid windows can open with limited notice relative to an incorporation timeline (DSC to Certificate of Incorporation typically takes one to two weeks, but INC-20A and full banking setup can extend this), developers planning to bid in an upcoming tranche should have the entity, its capitalisation, and its GST and bank account fully operational before an RfS is expected, not after.

What sector licences does a green hydrogen project need beyond MCA incorporation?

Incorporation makes the company exist; it does not make the plant legal to build or operate. A green hydrogen production or electrolyser manufacturing facility additionally needs:

• Consent to Establish and Consent to Operate from the State Pollution Control Board.
• Environmental clearance, where the project’s scale triggers it under the Environment Impact Assessment framework.
• Registration under the Factories Act, 1948, once the facility qualifies as a factory based on worker count and power usage.
• Approval from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), given hydrogen’s classification as a hazardous, flammable gas requiring specific storage and handling clearances.
• No Objection Certificate from the local Fire Department.
• Open access and grid connectivity approvals from the state transmission utility, where the project draws renewable power through open access rather than a co-located captive plant.

These run parallel to, not instead of, the SIGHT registration track, and several (particularly PESO and environmental clearance) have their own multi-month timelines that need to be built into the overall project schedule alongside the SECI bid calendar. In practice, Consent to Establish is typically the first of these to apply for, since most other approvals (PESO storage licensing, factory registration, the fire NOC) expect it as a supporting document, and environmental clearance, where triggered, is usually the longest single item on this list because it runs through a public consultation step before the State Pollution Control Board can issue Consent to Operate. Developers who sequence these approvals only after the SECI bid is won, rather than in parallel with the bid preparation itself, are the ones who end up holding an incentive allocation they cannot yet draw because the plant is not legally permitted to commission.

How does the Green Hydrogen Purchase Obligation affect offtake contracts?

The Green Hydrogen Purchase Obligation (GHPO), notified by the Ministry of Power, creates a demand floor by requiring specified consumers, principally petroleum refineries and fertiliser plants, to source a rising percentage of their hydrogen consumption as green hydrogen, on a schedule that steps up year by year through FY2029-30.

Green Hydrogen Purchase Obligation: indicative year-wise targets

Figures reflect the GHPO trajectory as published by the Ministry of Power; developers should confirm the applicable percentage and any sector-specific carve-outs for the relevant financial year against the current notification before finalising an offtake structure, since these obligations are reviewed periodically.

For a producer, the GHPO is useful as a policy tailwind, not as a substitute for a binding offtake contract. An obligated buyer’s compliance percentage does not translate automatically into a contract with any specific producer; that still has to be negotiated and documented as a power purchase agreement style offtake arrangement, with price, tenure and quality (green hydrogen standard compliance) terms of its own.

Is domestic offtake the only revenue route, or can a producer export?

Green hydrogen itself is costly to transport in bulk, which is why most producers convert it to green ammonia before shipping, and export is a genuine second revenue channel alongside the domestic GHPO-linked market, not a fallback. Green ammonia solves the logistics problem that pure hydrogen creates: it is easier to compress, store and ship, and it plugs directly into two existing global demand pools that a developer’s offtake strategy should account for from the entity-structuring stage, since export contracts are typically signed with the producing entity, not a downstream trading arm set up later.

• Fertiliser and industrial buyers in Europe, Japan and South Korea, where the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) began its transitional reporting phase in October 2023 and starts imposing a financial charge on embedded emissions in imports from 1 January 2026, giving buyers in these markets a direct cost incentive to prefer green ammonia over grey.
• Shipping fuel demand, driven by the International Maritime Organisation’s decarbonisation targets, with green ammonia emerging as one of the leading zero-emission marine fuel candidates as engine manufacturers develop ammonia-ready propulsion.

A handful of Indian developers have already signed long-term green ammonia supply agreements with Japanese and European counterparties, and SECI’s own SIGHT tenders have run dedicated green ammonia allocation rounds (Mode 1, Tranche 2A) alongside the pure hydrogen production incentive. For an energy developer structuring an entity today, this means the object clause discussed earlier should explicitly cover green ammonia production and export, not just electrolysis, and the IEC registration flagged in the incorporation steps above is not optional if export revenue features anywhere in the business plan.

What financial, locational and state-level benefits apply beyond SIGHT?

The Ministry of Power’s Green Hydrogen Policy gives a producer a 25-year waiver of inter-state transmission (ISTS) charges on renewable power used for hydrogen production, provided the project is commissioned on or before 31 December 2030, along with priority open access and the ability to bank unconsumed renewable power with the discom for up to 30 days. Several states layer their own capital subsidies and duty waivers on top of this. None of it changes the MCA incorporation or FEMA reporting process, which is uniform nationally, but it materially changes the return model a developer underwrites before committing to a site or a financing structure.

• ISTS waiver. The original 2021 Order capped the waiver at projects commissioned by 30 June 2025 for eight years. A 2023 Ministry of Power amendment extended eligibility to projects commissioned on or before 31 December 2030 and extended the waiver period itself to 25 years from commissioning, a materially longer runway than the SIGHT production incentive’s own three-year tenure.
• Open access and banking. Open access for sourcing renewable power must be granted within 15 days of application, and unconsumed renewable power can be banked with the distribution licensee for up to 30 days and drawn down later.
• Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) benefit. The green hydrogen or ammonia manufacturer, and the distribution licensee supplying it, both get RPO credit for the renewable power consumed in production, on top of any GHPO-linked offtake advantage.
• Hub-state siting. MNRE has designated three port-based green hydrogen hubs, at Deendayal Port (Gujarat), V. O. Chidambaranar Port (Tamil Nadu) and Paradip Port (Odisha), and endorsed NTPC’s proposed hub at Pudimadaka, Andhra Pradesh, which has separately stated an ambition to become India’s largest hydrogen hub. Gujarat has also been identified as the most resource-ready state overall on renewable energy availability, demand proximity and water availability. MNRE issued further guidelines in June 2025 for large-scale green hydrogen hubs and Hydrogen Valley Innovation Clusters, aimed at co-locating production, storage and export infrastructure.

Beyond the central Green Hydrogen Policy, several states run their own incentive layers that stack on top of SIGHT and the central transmission benefits.

State-level green hydrogen incentives (selected states)

State incentive structures are revised periodically, and Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha each have their own notified or draft policies with different caps. Confirm the current eligibility window and subsidy cap against the specific state notification before finalising a project’s financial model, since these figures change more frequently than the central scheme documents.

This state incentive stacking works alongside, not instead of, the ISTS waiver and hub siting benefits described above.

What tax benefits apply to a green hydrogen company beyond SIGHT?

SIGHT and GHPO are production and demand-side incentives, not tax breaks, and a green hydrogen company still has to choose its corporate tax regime and confirm what else it can actually stack on top of that choice, correctly. One preliminary point matters for every item below: the Income-tax Act, 1961 was replaced by the Income-tax Act, 2025 with effect from 1 April 2026, so a company incorporating or filing today operates under the new Act’s Tax Year 2026-27 and its renumbered sections, not the 1961 numbering that most published guides still use.

• Startup tax holiday (Section 140, Income-tax Act, 2025, corresponding to the erstwhile Section 80-IAC). A DPIIT-recognised private limited company or LLP incorporated between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2030 (the window was extended by five years under the Finance Act, 2025), with annual turnover under ₹100 crore, can claim a 100% deduction on eligible business profits for any three consecutive years within its first ten years, subject to Inter-Ministerial Board approval of the innovation and scalability dossier. This remains the most valuable single tax benefit for a genuinely early-stage entrant.
• Correcting a common claim on the concessional manufacturing rate. Several published guides on this topic still cite the erstwhile Section 115BAB’s 15% concessional rate (effective 17.16% with surcharge and cess), now Section 201 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, as available to a new green hydrogen manufacturer. That regime required the company to have commenced manufacturing on or before 31 March 2024, a condition carried over unchanged into the new Act, and the deadline has not been further extended. A company incorporating today cannot access this concessional manufacturing rate; the applicable alternative is Section 200 (corresponding to the erstwhile Section 115BAA), a flat 22% corporate tax rate (effective 25.17%) available to any domestic company that forgoes specified deductions and incentives, with no incorporation or commencement cut-off.
• Accelerated depreciation. Renewable energy generating plant and machinery, which extends to electrolysers coupled with a captive renewable source, qualifies for accelerated depreciation of up to 40% under the depreciation schedule of the Income Tax Rules, 2026 (which replaced the 1962 Rules alongside the new Act), for a company that has not opted into the Section 200 flat-rate regime. Opting into the flat rate means forgoing this additional depreciation, so the choice between the two routes needs to be modelled against the project’s actual capex and profit timeline, not assumed by default.
• GST on capex. The GST Council’s September 2025 rationalisation cut the rate on solar, wind and other renewable energy generating devices from 12% to 5%, which helps the renewable power side of a co-located project. That cut does not extend to hydrogen itself (HSN 2804, still 12%) or to electrolyser and water-gas generating machinery, which falls under standard industrial equipment rates rather than the concessional renewable-device list. Because most of a green hydrogen plant’s capex sits in the electrolyser and balance-of-plant equipment rather than in the renewable generation assets, input tax credit planning across the incorporation and capex phase, before commercial production begins and output supplies are limited, needs to account for this split rather than assume the lower rate applies plant-wide.
• Carbon credit revenue. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency has approved green hydrogen production as an eligible project category under the Offset Mechanism of the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, 2023 (notified by the Ministry of Power under the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, and amended in December 2023). A producer that is not itself an “obligated entity” under the scheme’s mandatory compliance sectors can still register a project and generate tradeable Carbon Credit Certificates, a revenue line separate from both SIGHT and GHPO. Exchange-based trading of certificates is expected to open around October 2026 on the Indian Energy Exchange and Power Exchange India Limited, so this revenue stream is only now becoming realisable rather than purely notional.

Deciding between the Section 200 flat rate and the depreciation-plus-deductions route, and timing the Section 140 application relative to a SIGHT bid, are board-level decisions that affect the project’s actual return, not paperwork to finalise after the SECI agreement is signed.

Common mistakes that cost energy developers time and money

• Choosing an LLP for a project that will eventually bid for SIGHT. The conversion to a private limited company later requires a fresh incorporation and re-transfer of assets and contracts, losing the time already invested.
• Filing FC-GPR late after a foreign equity round. Delay attracts compounding under FEMA, 1999, and can also hold up subsequent rounds since RBI compliance history is checked before further FDI reporting is accepted.
• Missing the INC-20A commencement of business deadline. A company that has not filed within 180 days cannot legally commence business or borrow, and risks being struck off the register under Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• Treating GHCI certification as a formality to arrange after the SECI award. Certification under the Green Hydrogen Certification Scheme of India requires annual third-party verification by an Accredited Carbon Verification agency, and since it is mandatory for any producer receiving SIGHT incentives, leaving it until after allocation risks a gap between winning the bid and being able to draw the incentive.
• Bidding for SECI’s RfS before the entity is fully capitalised. Bids from under-capitalised entities are routinely disqualified at the technical evaluation stage, wasting the EMD preparation effort.
• Treating GHPO obligation percentages as a guaranteed sale. Without a signed offtake agreement, an obligated buyer’s compliance requirement creates no enforceable claim on any specific producer’s output.
• Assuming the erstwhile Section 115BAB’s 15% rate is still available. That regime’s commencement deadline of 31 March 2024 has passed with no further extension, and the condition carries over unchanged into Section 201 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. A company incorporating now needs to model its tax position under Section 200 (22% flat rate) or the standard rate with accelerated depreciation instead.
• Skipping transfer pricing documentation on a cross-border JV. Where a foreign electrolyser OEM licenses technology to the Indian entity alongside its equity stake, the licensing arrangement is an international transaction requiring transfer pricing documentation and certification. For Tax Year 2026-27 onwards, this certification is Form No. 48 under Section 172 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 (the erstwhile Form 3CEB under Section 92E of the 1961 Act), and treating the licensing arrangement as a purely commercial matter outside tax scope invites scrutiny at assessment.

FAQs on Green Hydrogen Project Setup in India

Q: What is the tax treatment of incentives received under the SIGHT scheme? 
A: SIGHT incentives are production or manufacturing linked payouts received by the company and are generally treated as revenue receipts taxable under the Income-tax Act, 2025 (or the Income-tax Act, 1961, for periods before 1 April 2026), in the year of receipt or accrual, though the specific characterisation should be confirmed with a tax advisor based on the disbursement structure in the scheme agreement.

Q: How much does it cost to incorporate a green hydrogen private limited company? 
A: Government fees for SPICe+ filing depend on the authorised share capital, plus professional fees for drafting the object clause, DSC and DIN. Advisory fees for a full incorporation plus FEMA and scheme documentation package are typically structured as a fixed engagement fee rather than a percentage of project cost.

Q: What is the end-to-end timeline from incorporation to SIGHT bid eligibility? 
A: Incorporation through SPICe+ typically takes one to two weeks once documents are ready; commencement of business (INC-20A) must follow within 180 days. Developers should target full incorporation, capitalisation and GST registration at least four to six weeks before an expected SECI RfS closing date.

Q: What documents does MCA require for incorporating a hydrogen production company? 
A: Identity and address proof of directors and subscribers, registered office proof, DSCs, DINs, the drafted Memorandum and Articles of Association with a hydrogen-specific object clause, and subscriber declarations filed through SPICe+.

Q: Can a foreign company set up a wholly owned subsidiary directly for green hydrogen production? 
A: Yes. Since 100% FDI is permitted under the automatic route in this sector, a foreign parent can incorporate a wholly owned Indian subsidiary without prior government approval, subject to standard FEMA reporting on share allotment.

Q: Does a green hydrogen company need DPIIT startup recognition? 
A: DPIIT recognition is optional and relevant mainly for income tax exemptions available to early-stage startups; it has no bearing on SIGHT or SECI eligibility, which are assessed independently by MNRE and SECI.

Q: What happens if a company misses its local value addition target under SIGHT Component I? 
A: The scheme agreement with SECI typically provides for a reduced incentive payout or clawback proportional to the shortfall against the committed LVA target for that year, as specified in the SIGHT Scheme Guidelines.

Q: Can two or more promoter groups bid as a consortium under SECI’s RfS? 
A: SECI’s RfS documents generally permit consortium bids subject to defined lead-member criteria and joint and several liability terms; the exact conditions vary by tranche and should be checked against the live RfS.

Q: How does a family-owned energy business typically structure ownership in the hydrogen subsidiary? 
A: Most promoter families hold the hydrogen subsidiary through an existing holding company rather than direct individual shareholding, to keep future fundraising, ESOP pools and exit routes cleaner at the subsidiary level.

Q: What happens if the SECI bid is unsuccessful after incorporation? 
A: The entity remains a validly incorporated company and can be redeployed for a subsequent RfS, an unrelated renewable energy project, or wound down through the standard Companies Act closure process; incorporation cost is not scheme-contingent.

Q: Are NRI or foreign individual promoters treated differently from a foreign corporate investor? 
A: The FDI automatic route and FC-GPR reporting apply broadly to non-resident investment regardless of whether the investor is an individual or a corporate entity, though certain reporting formats (such as for repatriation) differ and should be checked with the AD bank at the time of investment.

Q: What if the electrolyser manufacturer is a joint venture rather than a wholly owned subsidiary? 
A: A joint venture with a foreign OEM is structured as a private limited company with shareholding split per the joint venture agreement, and the same FDI automatic route and FC-GPR filing requirements apply to the foreign partner’s equity portion.

Q: Does setting up in a green hydrogen hub state (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh) change the registration process? 
A: The MCA incorporation and FEMA process is uniform nationally; what differs by state is the availability of land, dedicated industrial park allotments, and state-level renewable energy open access rules, which affect project execution rather than entity registration.

Green hydrogen registration in India is, at its core, a sequencing problem: the entity, its object clause, its FEMA documentation and its SIGHT bid readiness all have to be built to the same timeline, not layered on one after another. An energy developer that gets the private limited structure, the FDI reporting and the object clause right before the first SECI RfS closes has a materially cleaner path to the incentive than one correcting these after a bid is already in motion.

Regulatory references

• Companies Act, 2013, Sections 4, 7, 10A, 248
• Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999
• Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019, Rule 21 (pricing guidelines)
• RBI Master Direction on Reporting under FEMA, 1999 (FC-GPR filing)
• Consolidated FDI Policy (Power and Renewable Energy sector)
• MNRE Scheme Guidelines: Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) Programme, Component I (Tranche II) and Component II
• National Green Hydrogen Standard, notified by MNRE

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