India Ready to Create Ethanol Economy Worth Rs 50,000 Crore

Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport & Highways of India and Shipping Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, announced that India ready to head towards bio-fuel want to create Rs 50,000-cr ethanol economy.

Ethanol’s growing importance comes in the backdrop of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). So, increasing ethanol production will help India save valuable forex reserves, given that the country is the world’s top oil importer and imports. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets a target of lowering import dependence in oil by 10 percentage points to 67% by 2022, when the country will celebrate 75 years of Independence. To meet such an ambitious target, ethanol holds the key.

Also, the focus on ethanol will help reduce pollution and strengthen India’s resolve towards fulfilling its COP-21, the UN Climate Conference commitments. The blending of ethanol with petrol had increased four times since 2014 and the aim was to increase it to 10%. Ethanol blending in petrol increased from 38 crore litres in 2013-14 to around 141 crore litres in 2017-18.

For asserting that want to create a Rs 50,000-crore ethanol economy, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road TransportNitin Gadkari said the bio-fuel will benefit both “ecology and economy”. Addressing an event here, Gadkari said a lot of years went into convincing about ethanol use but in the last five years, the policy related to ethanol has been implemented in true sense.

“Chairman from a big oil company came to meet me recently. I told him you spend Rs 10,000 crore in purchasing hydro-carbo properties in other countries, but why do you spend only Rs 2,000 crore in India on the green fuel. Farmers will give you ethanol,” he said.

Gadkari said today a lot of oil companies and others are going into the right direction in the field of green fuel. “All are going into right direction because I and Modiji (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) are firm on this issue.

“Whatever work that has been taken place in the field is very small and we have to go head and increase the volume as we have to create Rs 50,000 crore ethanol economy in the country,” said Gadkari. “If the use of ethanol is increased, it will help ecologically and economically as import of crude oil will go down and it will benefit ecology and economy,” he said.

Indian economy is forecasted to grow to $7 trillion by 2030. Therefore, aiming to create an ethanol economy which is enormous value will boost its domestic economy. Recently, Gadkari said that he is making a policy that revolves around themes of “import substitution, cost effectiveness and pollution free.