Government targeting Rs 2 lakh crore ethanol economy: Gadkari

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the Centre was seriously working towards increasing the use of ethanol in the transport sector. The government is targeting to take the ethanol economy, currently valued at Rs 20,000 crores, to Rs 2 lakh crores.

The government is planning to introduce flex-fuel engine vehicles with an increased supply of ethanol. With the rollout of flex-fuel vehicles that run on 100 per cent bio-ethanol, the demand for ethanol will immediately jump by 4 to 5 times, he said addressing an event online.

Though India started its programme for blending ethanol with petrol in 2003, it only made a minimum blending of 5 per cent mandatory in 2007. The government brought the fixed ethanol procurement pricing policy in December 2014, he said.

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From 2018 onwards, the government has been fixing multiple prices for ethanol, based on the feedstock used to produce ethanol. This encouraged diversion of B-heavy molasses and sugarcane juice into the production of ethanol, he added.

He also suggested that excess sugar stocks can be diverted towards producing ethanol by adding 15-20 per cent sugar into B-Heavy Molasses.

"This will have multiple benefits - firstly, it will utilise an excess stock of around 45 to 60 lakh metric tonnes of sugar and will improve the ethanol recovery by 30 per cent due to better quality of raw material," he said.

Now, the government has allowed the use of grains like corn, surplus rice, damaged food grains, sweet sorghum, bajra and jawar for the production of ethanol, Gadkari said.

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