Government has proposed to advance the deadline for blending 20% ethanol in petrol from the earlier announced 2030. The deadline may now be advanced to 2025 or as early as 2023 to allow sugar mills to convert excess sugarcane or sugar for producing higher quantity of ethanol required for blending with petrol. Government had earlier fixed a target of 10% ethanol blending by 2022 and 20% by 2030. But the plan now is to directly migrate to 20% as the level of blending is successively being used in blunt rows such as Brazil.
The advancing of date is also being looked at as India will not be able to extend financial help for marketing and transport of excess sugar beyond 2023 as per WTO conditions. This will block funds to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore of sugar mills for the unsold stock of sugar affecting their liquidity position resulting in accumulation of cane price arrears of farmers. Avenues to use excess sugar to producing ethanol would provide alternative revenue stream to sugar farmers while giving higher amount of bio fuels for use by the automobile sector that will help in green initiatives of the government.
Apart from facilitating adoption of green fuel, E20 blending would also cut down India’s crude oil import bill which stands at a whopping Rs 8 lakh crore. This is also expected to boost the ethanol economy. The use of 20% ethanol blended petrol will also test the ability of vehicles to use this bio fuel. Auto companies will come out with compatibility studies of vehicles for using the bio fuel that will help in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons. Vehicles will also display their compatibility by wearing a clear mark through a sticker.
