CCTS Obligated Entities: Where India's 748 Covered Plants Are Located

India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) now covers 748 obligated entities across eight industrial sectors and 25 states and union territories. This post summarises a working paper that compiles the entity-level target data notified by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and describes what the covered population actually looks like: how many plants sit in each state, which sectors they belong to, the baseline emissions they carry, and the abatement the first compliance cycle implies.

Read the full working paper (PDF), Obligated Entities under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS): Sectoral Composition, Geographic Distribution, and Baseline Emissions. It is free to read and free to cite with acknowledgement.

The headline numbers

• 748 obligated entities, spread across 25 states and union territories
• Eight sectors: iron and steel, cement, aluminium, textile, petrochemicals, paper and pulp, chlor-alkali, and petroleum refining
• 759 Mt CO2e of aggregate baseline emissions
• 33.5 Mt CO2e of implied first-cycle abatement if every entity meets its 2026-27 intensity target at baseline production, or 4.4% of baseline
• The five largest states by entity count hold roughly 58% of covered baseline emissions

The obligated base was notified in stages. Seven sectors covering 493 entities were finalised in two phases between October 2025 and January 2026. Iron and steel, the largest single sector, came in through a draft notification in June 2026 that added a further 255 units, and those targets are expected to be substantially retained on finalisation.

Which states host the plants

Entities are spread across 25 states and union territories, but the distribution is heavily concentrated. Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Karnataka together host 46.5% of all obligated entities.

Counting plants and weighting them by emissions give different pictures. Odisha alone represents close to 19% of baseline emissions. Jharkhand is twelfth by entity count but seventh by emissions, contributing 8.9% of implied first-cycle abatement from 3.6% of entities. Andhra Pradesh rises similarly. Tamil Nadu and Punjab fall sharply once emissions weight is applied: Punjab holds 3.5% of entities but under 1% of baseline emissions.

For maps of the same population, including a sector overlay and an emissions-weighted view, see the geography of India's carbon market.

Which sectors they belong to

Iron and steel is the largest sector by every measure: entity count, baseline emissions, and implied first-cycle abatement (54.3% of the total). Cement is second on abatement at 21.4%. Aluminium, with only sixteen entities, is third at 10.9%, so three sectors account for close to 87% of the first-cycle total. Fertiliser is not part of the first cycle.

Relative to each sector's own baseline the ranking changes. Textile carries the highest implied reduction rate at close to 9%, cement the lowest at under 3%, and iron and steel sits mid-range at around 5%. The sector contributing most in tonnes is not the sector asked to move fastest from its own starting point.

What the first compliance cycle asks for

If every obligated entity meets its 2026-27 target at baseline production, implied abatement is roughly 33.5 Mt CO2e. Because CCTS targets are intensity-based, that is the abatement implied when output is held at baseline, not a forecast of realised absolute emissions, which depend on future production.

The requirement is concentrated at the entity level too: the twenty largest contributors account for 47% of total implied abatement. One feature of the draft iron and steel notification is worth noting. Forty-one steel entities carry 2026-27 target intensities above their baseline intensity, which permits a higher emission intensity than the baseline. Those entities offset roughly 1.5 Mt CO2e of the abatement generated elsewhere, so gross positive abatement across the remaining entities is about 35.0 Mt CO2e before the offset.

Why the location of the plants matters

Where obligated entities cluster, they share power and fuel markets, suppliers, infrastructure, and a regulatory environment. A carbon market adds one more: monitoring, reporting and verification capacity, accredited carbon verification agencies, auditors, and carbon accounting expertise all build up around dense clusters of demand, so entities in thinly populated states can face a shallower pool of that capacity.

Because the CCTS is a baseline-and-credit system, the credits an entity generates or owes depend on both its intensity gap and its output rather than on a fixed ceiling. Within a cluster that shares technology, suppliers and fuel access, a new efficiency measure or fuel-switching option can spread quickly and produce correlated intensity improvements across several entities at once. Credit supply and compliance demand can then move together within a cluster rather than independently across several hundred entities, with consequences for how concentrated and how volatile the market ends up being.

You can watch that behaviour play out in a market you control in the ETS Sandbox.

Download the paper and the underlying data

The full working paper, with the state and sector tables, the maps, and the notes on method, is here: Obligated Entities under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (PDF).

The entity-level dataset behind it, including physical locations, is available as a spreadsheet and is free to use. If you would like a copy, or would like to work together on something with it, email hipromets@gmail.com. I only ask for acknowledgement where it is used.

Frequently asked questions

How many obligated entities are there under India's CCTS? There are 748 obligated entities. Seven sectors covering 493 entities were finalised between October 2025 and January 2026, and a draft notification in June 2026 added 255 iron and steel units.

Which states have the most CCTS obligated entities? Odisha (79), Gujarat (77), Chhattisgarh (73), Rajasthan (64) and Karnataka (55). Together those five host 46.5% of all obligated entities and roughly 58% of covered baseline emissions.

Where are India's CCTS plants located? Obligated entities sit in 25 states and union territories, concentrated in industrial clusters rather than spread evenly: iron and steel in the eastern mineral and industrial belt, cement and textile further west, and the smaller chemical and metal sectors in their own pockets. The paper maps the full distribution.

Which sectors are covered by the CCTS? Iron and steel, cement, aluminium, textile, petrochemicals, paper and pulp, chlor-alkali, and petroleum refining. Fertiliser is not part of the first compliance cycle.

What are the baseline emissions covered by the CCTS? Approximately 759 Mt CO2e across the 748 obligated entities, of which iron and steel and cement together account for roughly four-fifths.

How much abatement does the first CCTS compliance cycle require? Roughly 33.5 Mt CO2e, or 4.4% of baseline emissions, if every entity meets its 2026-27 intensity target at baseline production.

Is there a list of CCTS obligated entities I can download? Yes. The working paper on this page is free to download, and the entity-level dataset with locations is available on request by emailing hipromets@gmail.com.