In year-end review of sugar sector, govt says ethanol capacity up 200% on yr
This story was originally published at 15:19 IST on 20 December 2024
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NEW DELHI – India's ethanol production capacity has increased more than 200% on year to 16.85 billion litres as of November, the food department said in its year-end review. Of the total capacity, 9.41 billion litres is from sugar-based distillers and 7.44 billion litres from grain-based units, it added. In 2022-23, the ethanol output capacity was 5.02 billion litres, while a decade ago, it was 380 million litres.
With higher ethanol supply, ethanol blending has risen to 14.6% in 2023-24 from 1.53% in 2013-14. Oil companies buy ethanol from distilleries to blend it with petrol and achieve blending targets. To reduce dependence on crude oil, the government has set a target of achieving 20% blending by 2025-26.
The sugar sector has invested more than INR 400 billion so far in setting up new distilleries and increasing production capacity, the release said. In the last 10 years, sugar mills have earned more than INR 1 trillion from ethanol sales. "Sale of ethanol has resulted in better cash flows for sugar mills, resulting in prompt payment to cane farmers," the release said.
About 50 million farmers are directly employed by sugar factories. Across the country, 535 mills were running in 2023-24, the release said. Mills have paid INR 1.09 trillion, or 98% of the cane dues to farmers for purchases made for the 2023-24 sugar season that ended in September, the release said. For cane purchases, mills must pay farmers prices decided by the government.
In 2023-24, mills made 32 million tonnes of sugar, and diverted 2.4 million tonnes of sugar for ethanol production. The sugar industry's annual output is worth more than INR 1.3 trillion, the release said.
To ensure real-time data and accuracy of sugar production data, the government has mandated mills to submit data through application programming interfaces on the national single window system. End
Reported by Afra Abubacker
Edited by Avishek Dutta
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