Pawar asks distilleries to reserve 50% alcohol for ethanol

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has asked distilleries to reserve 50 per cent of its alcohol production for ethanol, which could be used for making ethanol blended petrol (EBP).

Pawar, during a meeting with co-operative and private sugar factories, ethanol manufacturers, distillery owners and state government officials, said that distilleries should reserve 50 per cent of its alcohol production for ethanol.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had cleared the proposal for implementation of ethanol blended petrol programme, whereby, the committee made mandatory doping of 5 per cent ethanol in petrol for oil companies.

The national demand for ethanol from oil companies is 105-crore litres every year and India produces nearly 163-crore litres of ethanol every year from its over 170 plants.

"Maharashtra has the capacity to produce 92-crore litres of ethanol from its 90 plants. But since the oil companies here were not ready to purchase ethanol as its prices are high, the ethanol manufacturing plants could not supply the fuel. But with the CCEA making ethanol blending mandatory, the companies in the state have demanded 14-crore litres of the fuel," Ethanol Manufacturers' Association of India's (EMAI) President Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil told PTI.

"We would be producing 30-crore litres of ethanol of which 14-crore litres would be supplied to the oil companies in the State. The remaining 16-crore litres, we would supply to states like Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and parts of Gujarat, where ethanol is not produced," Mohite-Patil said.