The Secretary said that the government currently has about 90 million tonnes of food grains stock in the central pool.
The government on Friday said that around 17 million tonnes of surplus food grains, apart from sugarcane molasses, would be used to achieve the target of making ethanol. 20% blending with petrol by 2025.
Addressing a webinar organized by sugar industry body ISMA, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said that the government is encouraging ethanol production not only from jaggery but also from food grains like maize and rice to achieve the blending targets.
He said the country has been producing about 44.5 million tonnes of additional sugar for the past few years, with production of over 30 million tonnes and domestic demand of around 26 million tonnes.
The secretary informed that domestic sugar prices fell due to surplus production, affecting both farmers and sugar mills.
In order to tackle surplus production of sugar and low factory prices of sugar, Mr. Pandey highlighted that the government has taken two policy interventions in the form of transport assistance to mills to promote sugar exports and ethanol.
“We put in place a very committed policy to divert this surplus production or towards ethanol production and the industry has come forward in a big way,” he said.
In the 2020-21 marketing year that ended last month, Mr Pandey said sugar mills were able to divert around 2 million tonnes of sugar towards ethanol production.
The sugar marketing year runs from October to September.
“…this year we expect to divert around 3.5 million tonnes of ethanol production, and next year there will be less than 6 million tonnes of sugar as we turn it to ethanol production,” the secretary said.
In favor of the automobile industry, he said that the government has come out with rules for fuel.
“E-10 has already been permitted now, and E-20 by 2024, implementation will begin. Essentially by 2025, 20 percent blending will be achieved across India.”
According to ISMA, in the ethanol marketing year 2020-21 ending November, with a supply of 3.35 billion litres, oil marketing companies (OMCs) are projected to achieve 8.5% blending of ethanol with petrol in the country.
After this interim intervention, he said that the government is now going a step ahead and allowing the use of food grains to make ethanol.
“But now we are going a step ahead. We are also going to use about 165 (lakh tonnes), about 17 million tonnes of food grains, which is also surplus…,” Mr. Pandey said.
The Secretary said that the government currently has about 90 million tonnes of food grains stock in the central pool.
“Many countries thought it was a stock that was burdening the market and depressing the market sentiments, but during COVID-19, around 60 million tonnes of food grains were distributed free of cost to around 80 million population. is,” he said. noted.
The Secretary said that the free distribution of food grains helped the country to fight the COVID pandemic in a very effective manner and ensure food security of the people affected by the pandemic.
“So now, India will be moving towards the E20 target, using about 17 million tonnes of food grains for ethanol production. And we also intend to move to flexi-fuel in the country, to have a higher level of blending Can. Allowed,” said Mr. Pandey.
The Secretary said that the automobile industry has been invited to bring in the technology already available at the global level so that surplus food grains and sugarcane can be utilized.
In June this year, the Center had allotted 78,000 tonnes of rice at a concessional rate of ₹20/kg from state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) to distilleries for the current ethanol marketing year ending November.
The Government has approved various proposals for new/expansion of grain based distilleries.
The government has already notified that it will provide E20 fuel by April 2023. E20 contains 20% ethanol and 80% gasoline.
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