Centre promotes Ehanol blending in Petrol to reduce import dependency and promote agriculture sector

The Government of India is promoting Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme to boost the domestic agriculture sector and to increase savings in foreign exchange by reducing the dependency of import for Petroleum. Rameswar Teli, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas informed this in Rajya Sabha. Besides this, the government has already notified National Policy on Biofuels-2018. The Policy has laid out the target of 20 per cent blending of ethanol in Petrol while blending of 5 per cent biodiesel in diesel by 2030.

Simultaneously the government has taken several measures to benefit the ethanol manufacturers. It has permitted multiple grain based feedstock and sugarcane for the production of ethanol while for uninterrupted production it has amended the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act 1951. The Act lays emphasis on uninterrupted production, movement and storage of ethanol in the country. It also brings ethanol production under lowest GST slab rate of only 5% provided it’s meant for EBP Programme.

Besides promoting EBP Programme the government has also introduced interest subvention schemes continuously from 2018 to 2021. All these efforts are meant for the augmentation of ethanol production capacity. Even the oil marketing companies have signed agreements for long term ethanol off-take and to set up dedicated ethanol plants in deficit states.