Centre to finalise new national policy on bio-fuels soon

New Delhi [India], November 24 (ANI): The Union Government will soon roll out the new national policy on bio-fuels, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas said today.

We are in the process of finalising New National Policy on Bio-fuels. We recently had a consultative meeting of all the stake holders at New Delhi. We are evaluating all the feedback/suggestions.
New policy will provide complete off-take guarantee to the producers. pic.twitter.com/sPyzCnUdHt

— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) November 24, 2017

Ethanol has the potential to substantially cut down India's crude import bill.

The advantages of ethanol blending in petroleum include forex savings, reduced dependency on crude imports, boost to agriculture sector and additional income to farmers.

"The supply of ethanol for ethanol blending in petrol has increased to 111 crore litre in 2015-16 from 15.4 crore litre in 2011," he said.

There is 190 percent hike in procurement of Ethanol under Ethanol Blended Petroleum.

The prices of ethanol has also been upwardly revised by more than 40 percent to give benefit the farmers, Pradhan added.

The Minister also expressed his pleasure on coming together of industries, technology, partners, academia, policy makers and civil society to discuss the challenges and opportunities of ethanol economy.

The petroleum minister was attending the inaugural session of conference on "Ethanol as Transport Fuel" organised by CIRT jointly with Indian Federation of Green Energy today in Pune.

Pradhan also informed that the government has agreed to the demand of enhancing research collaboration with IIT Bombay in the area of alternative green fuel. (ANI)