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Informist, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025

MUMBAI – The National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, at a brainstorming session Friday, discussed steps to boost ethanol production by upgrading the distilleries to multi-feed distilleries, it said in a press release. In a bid to make the cooperative sugar industry self-reliant economically, sugar mills are encouraged to participate in 20% ethanol blending programme round the year, said Union Minister Amit Shah.

The session was chaired by President of the federation Harshvardhan Patil and attended by the managing directors of cooperative sugar factories across the country, managing directors of state sugar federations, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, Director of the Union Ministry of Cooperation D.K. Verma, National Cooperative Development Corporation Director Girraj Agnihotri, Sugar Commissioner of Maharashtra Kunal Khemnar and other officials of the federation.

The 20% blending target could be possible through ethanol production from maize during the period when the sugar season is over, said Shah. There are over 200 cooperative sugar factories in the country out of which 63 have distilleries producing fuel grade ethanol. However, cooperative sugar mills contribute about 13% in ethanol supply. Their lower contribution to ethanol production, in comparison with private sugar mills, is due to insufficient availability of cane-based raw materials.

The crushing season of cooperative sugar factories usually ends in Mar-Apr, and after that, if ethanol production is to continue, it has to be through grain-based feed-stocks, the release said. Maize is a low-water consuming crop that can be grown in two seasons a year. The government has also increased its minimum support price this year. Oil marketing companies are in favour of entering into long-term agreements with sugar factories in this regard and orders have also been issued to purchase the finished ethanol from cooperative distilleries on first priority, according to the release.

In terms of providing financial assistance to sugar mills, interest subvention on the mills' term loans will be provided, according to the release. Besides, the National Cooperative Development Corporation has agreed to finance these projects on debt-equity ratio of 90:10 and charge substantially at lower interest rates, it said.  End

Reported by Taniva Singha Roy

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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