Govt has paid Rs 87,558cr to farmers in last 10 years for producing biofuel: Hardeep Puri

New Delhi, Aug 10 (IANS) The government has paid Rs 87,558 crore to farmers for producing biofuel in the last decade (2014-2024), boosting their incomes and promoting the cultivation of biofuel crops to produce ethanol (alcohol) for blending with petrol as part of India's green energy transition, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Saturday.   

Releasing the latest figures to celebrate World Biofuel Day, the Minister said: "India's ethanol demand is poised to grow to more than 10 billion litres by 2025 even as we have continuously been moving our targets ahead of schedule."

In a post on X, he further stated that the blending of ethanol with petrol increased from 38 crore litres in 2013-14 to 508.9 crore litres in 2022-23.

"We achieved 10 per cent ethanol blending target 5 months in advance in June 2022. E20 target was also advanced to 2025, 5 years from the earlier planned 2030 and 20 per cent ethanol blended fuel is already available across more than 15,000 petrol retail outlets across the country," Hardeep Singh Puri said.

"These initiatives are also powering our quest to transform our farmer brothers from being Anndata (food giver) to also being Urjadata (energy giver)," he remarked.

The Minister said that while 46 per cent of the ethanol has been produced from sugarcane, the remaining 54 per cent has come from foodgrain.

Excess of agricultural produce like maize and damaged foodgrains have been used to produce ethanol from eco-friendly feedstock, he added.

"On World Biofuel Day, let us reiterate our commitment to provide strength & momentum to India's unprecedented Green Energy Transition & the remarkable journey towards energy self-sufficiency as biofuels, among other alternative sources of green energy, play a pivotal role in this process," the Petroleum Minister added.

During the current supply year (2023-24), the blending of ethanol with petrol has already crossed 13 per cent compared to the corresponding figure of 12.06 per cent in 2023-24 when the blending of ethanol with petrol increased to more than 500 crore litres, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Suresh Gopi had informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

Government-owned oil marketing companies, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, have invited bids for the supply of almost 66 crore litres of ethanol for the supply year 2023-2024, which falls between November 1, 2023 and October 31, 2024.

In order to achieve the 20 per cent ethanol blending target by 2025-26, the government has taken several measures which include a detailed Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India; expansion of feedstock for the production of ethanol; remunerative price for procurement of ethanol under the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme; lowered GST rate to 5 per cent on ethanol for EBP Programme; amendment in Industries (Development and Regulation) Act for free movement of ethanol across states for blending, the minister said.