Representational Photograph | Credits: Bioenergy International
The National Policy on Biofuels – 2018 inter alia allows the use of surplus food grains for production of ethanol for blending with petrol, with the approval of National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC).
The NBCC in its meetings held on 20 April, 2020 and 09 November, 2020 allowed the production of ethanol from surplus rice and maize available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) for blending with petrol under the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme.
Based on the offers received in 2020-21, Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) allocated 41.91 crore litre of ethanol to be procured from surplus rice, maize and damaged food grains unfit for human consumption. Accordingg to information available with the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD), the ethanol yield from one tonne of maize and rice is 380 and 450 litres, respectively. Thus, to produce 100 litres of ethanol, about 2.22 quintals of rice or about 2.63 quintals of maize is required to be used.
The cost of production of ethanol from any feedstock including rice or maize depends upon a number of factors, such as quality of feedstock, efficiency of plant, cost of other inputs, etc. This bio-ethanol produced from these feedstock is being used by OMCs for blending in petrol under the EBP Programme.
The National Policy on Biofuels – 2018 aims to achieve the goals by (a) reinforcing ongoing ethanol/bio-diesel supplies through increasing domestic production, (b) setting up second-generation (2G) bio-refineries, (c) development of new feedstock for biofuels from cellulosic and lignocelluloses route including petrochemical route, (d) development of new technologies for conversion to biofuels, (e) creating suitable environment for biofuels and its integration with the main fuels. Due to the above policy initiatives taken by the Government, ethanol procurement increased from 38 crore litre in 2013-14 to 173.03 crore litre in 2019-20.
(Published from PIB)
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