The Unconventional hydrocarbon resources may play an important role in India’s transition to a gas-based economy. In case of these resources, like shale gas and shale oil, the source rock also acts as a reservoir, unlike Conventional hydrocarbon resources. Shale gas can occur as adsorbed, dissolved, and free gas. The evaluation of shale gas and oil resources depends on parameters such as organic richness, type of kerogen, and the level of maturation. From the production point of view, the thickness, porosity, and permeability of the shale, as well as the mineralogy, brittleness, and geomechanical properties of the shale, are important. Integrated studies, including unconventional petroleum systems modelling, have proved to be useful in evaluating shale gas and oil prospects. This chapter covers the characteristics of shale plays, both shale gas and shale oil, assessment workflows in terms of play screening, exploration risk assessment, and regional or national resource assessment. Additionally, the generic requirements of the laboratory dataset, field dataset, and technology needed for evaluation are summarized. The status of the evaluation of shale plays in Indian basins, taking into consideration the current trend of assessment, is presented. Several basins in India hold a promise of shale gas and oil potential. The most promising basins among them are Cambay, Krishna-Godavari, and Barmer, which meet several criteria for shale gas and oil potential. Pranhita-Godavari, Vindhyan, Cauvery, and Damodar Valley Basins also show some shale oil potential, including the possibility of shale gas. The Assam shelf has mostly early mature to mature shales and may have some shale oil potential. The challenges for shale gas and oil exploration in India are geological factors, including understanding shale reservoir parameters and exploration challenges like simulation and stress, and fracture network in the shale. Among the drilling challenges are wellbore instability, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and water availability. The other challenges include the availability of infrastructure like pipelines, environmental concerns, seismic activity due to fracking, higher cost of development of resources, estimation of resources and production profile, and economic competition from alternate resources like tight gas and coal-bed methane. With the modern workflow adoption and available technology, effective data generation for the assessment and evaluation, storage calculations, producibility evaluations, and the ultimate sweet spot delineation of shale plays (potential and possible) in targeted Indian basins can be achieved more efficiently.