Parliamentary Committee Raises Concern over Ethanol Blending Programme

March 23, 2018

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(IANS /Moneylife) Raising an alarm over slow ethanol procurement for blending with the petrol, a parliamentary committee has flagged loopholes in the government's Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP).

The EBP, under Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, aims at blending ethanol with petrol, thereby bringing it under the category of biofuels and saving millions of dollars by cutting fuel imports. Savings due to blending of ethanol for the ethanol supply for the year 2015-16 was around $353 million.

In 2016, the government had fixed the target of blending 10 per cent ethanol, however, later shifted the target to 2022.

The blend was, however, only 2.07 per cent in 2016-17 and 3.5 per cent during 2015-16, noted the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas.

The committee has now asked the government to make all efforts to intensify the procurement of ethanol, with molasses.

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The government attributed low procurement to drought situation in Karnataka and Maharashtra, the sugarcane producing states.

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The committee also asked the Ministry and OMCs to "seriously look at establishing Second Generation Ethanol Plants", to diversify its sources and improve the blending percentage in the country.

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India is the third largest consumer of energy in the world after China and the US. Currently, the country is dependent on imports for about 82.1 per cent of its crude oil requirement and to the extent of about 44.4 per cent in case of natural gas. READ MORE