Context: The Department of Food and Public Distribution has notified a modified scheme for extending financial assistance for expansion of ethanol distillation capacity.
Background: The Government has a fixed target of 10% blending of fuel grade ethanol with petrol by 2022 & 20% blending by 2030. It aims
- to boost agricultural economy,
- to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel,
- to save foreign exchange on account of crude oil import bill & to reduce the air pollution
About the scheme:
- Aims: To achieve 20% blending by 2025 as well as to meet out the requirement of ethanol production capacity in the country. The scheme aims for extending financial assistance to project proponents for
- enhancement of their ethanol distillation capacity or
- to set up distilleries for producing 1st Generation (1G) ethanol from feed stocks such as cereals (rice, wheat, barley, corn & sorghum), sugarcane, sugar beet etc. or
- converting molasses based distilleries to dual feedstock.
- Requirement of Ethanol: Out of total requirement of 1200 crore liters, 700 crore liters is required to be supplied by sugar industry & another 500 crore liters need to be supplied by grain based distilleries.
- Supporting the sugar industry: The Government has also allowed production of ethanol from B-Heavy Molasses, sugarcane juice, sugar syrup and sugar.
- Maize production: Govt. is also encouraging distilleries to produce ethanol from maize; & rice available with Food Corporation of India.
- Interest subvention: The Government would bear interest subvention for five years including one year moratorium against the loan availed by project proponents from banks @ 6% per annum or 50% of the rate of interest charged by banks whichever is lower.
Benefits:
- This will bring an investment of about Rs. 40,000 crore.
- Due to upcoming investment in capacity addition / new distilleries, various new employment opportunities will be created in rural areas.
- Facilitate diversion of excess sugar to ethanol
- Enhancing income of farmers as setting up of new distilleries would not only increase demand of their crops but would assure farmers of getting better price for their crops.
- Encourage farmers to diversify their crops to cultivate, particularly maize/corn, which need less water than sugarcane and rice.
- It would enhance production of ethanol from various feedstocks, thereby, facilitating blending targets of ethanol with petrol.
- It would reduce import dependency on crude oil, thereby, realising the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
- Reduce transportation costs: Sugarcane and ethanol is produced mainly in three states viz Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
- By bringing new grain based distilleries in the entire country would result in distributed production of ethanol and would save a lot of transportation.
The National Policy on Biofuels-2018
- It envisages an indicative target of 20% blending of ethanol in petrol and 5% blending of bio-diesel in diesel by 2030.
- Now it has been proposed to prepone the 20% blending of ethanol with petrol by 2025.
- It allows production of ethanol from damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice etc. which are unfit for human consumption.
- The policy also allows conversion of surplus quantities of food grains to ethanol, based on the approval of the National Biofuel Coordination Committee.
- Use of damaged foodgrains and surplus foodgrains for production of ethanol will increase its availability for Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme.
- Benefits: Annual foreign exchange impact of about Rs. 5070 crore and carbon emission reduced to the extent of 29.94 lakh tonnes.
- Under the EBP programme, ethanol blending in petrol is being undertaken by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).
Source: https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1688616
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