Bengal received 15 proposals for manufacturing biofuel: Chief secy

The West Bengal government on Wednesday said it has received around 15 proposals for manufacturing biofuel, entailing an investment of Rs 2,666 crore.

Chief Secretary H K Dwivedi said the state is a big producer of rice, and the broken form of it would be used for manufacture of ethanol, which will be mixed with petrol and diesel.

"Since it is a green fuel, we are making it mandatory to blend ethanol with petrol and diesel. After introducing the ethanol production promotion policy, within a very short span of time we have received 15 proposals to manufacture ethanol.

The total investment is to the tune of Rs 2,666 crore with direct employment potential of 4,000," Dwivedi told reporters after the first meeting of the Empowered Group on Industry.

The senior official also said the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation is exploring options of setting up a dedicated park for ethanol units.

At Wednesday's meeting, the government decided to frame a draft sand mining policy under which the state mineral development corporation would be the sole authority to auction sand.

The idea is to stop illegal sand mining, he said.

"In the existing policy, mining was taking place in a decentralised manner without uniformity. This was also affecting the environment and hampering the state's revenues, the chief secretary said.

The corporation will carry out auction of sand blocks in a transparent and centralised manner. This will start from October-end, he said, adding, earlier private players who were given such blocks on lease used to sell sand after extracting it.

Dwivedi said the state government has also received a proposal to set up a data centre in Hooghly.

The state has identified land for floating a global tender for development of the Tajpur Port.

On September 1, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced the formation of an empowered group for promoting industry in the state.