India faces a complex trilemma of energy security, economic affordability, and aggressive decarbonisation targets. While green hydrogen remains the ultimate long-term frontier, high electrolyser capital costs and renewable intermittency limit its immediate scalability. This review article evaluates local coal gasification as a pragmatic, transitional bridge toward a low-carbon economy through the production of affordable "blue" hydrogen. India’s domestic coal reserve base, characterized by high ash content, low sulfur and low calorific value, presents distinct thermochemical challenges. This paper comprehensively reviews primary gasification technologies including moving-bed, fluidized-bed, and entrained-flow systems assessing their techno-economic viability and operational compatibility with high-ash Indian coal run-of-mine variants. We systematically evaluate syngas conditioning pathways, focusing on advanced Water-Gas Shift (WGS) kinetics, acid gas removal (AGR) units, and commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) or utilization (CCUS) technologies. Techno-economic models reveal that combining local coal gasification with carbon capture can deliver blue hydrogen at a levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) substantially below current green hydrogen pathways, making it highly competitive with imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) reforming. Finally, we map out the regional infrastructure requirements, geological storage potential in depleted oil/gas fields and deep saline aquifers, and the critical policy frameworks necessary to de-risk investments and integrate blue hydrogen into India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission ecosystem.