The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for petroleum and natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan has expressed the government’s commitment for time-bound execution of initiatives to introduce ethanol-blended petrol and bio-diesel in the country.

Inaugurating a national seminar on ‘Lignocellulose to Ethanol - Roadmap for India’ in New Delhi today, he said that oil marketing companies have already invited bids for 120 crore litres of ethanol for blending in petrol for 2015-16 which would be approximately 5% of the country’s total petrol consumption. 

Detailing the benefits of using ethanol-blended petrol, Pradhan said that it will not only help in value addition for the farmer’s produce but will also reduce foreign exchange expenditure. He said that added benefits of blended petrol would be in the form of employment generation, entrepreneurship promotion and environment protection. He said that ethanol-blended petrol was introduced in 2003 but the process got impetus only in 2014-15 when the new government took policy decisions to incentivise petrol blending. 

The minister said that there is a demand for ethanol for blending with petrol but there are technological and financial challenges which need to be overcome. He called upon various departments of government, state governments, academic and research institutions to work together to find a solution to these challenges. Pradhan said that molasses to ethanol conversion is already underway and the government has taken up second generation of lignocelluloses to ethanol production to utilise agricultural residues/wastes, and achieve the target of 10% ethanol blending. 

Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau