look news india
New Delhi, August 10 (HS). Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday called upon sugar mills to explore alternatives to sugarcane for ethanol production and emphasized on adopting a multi-pronged approach for biofuel production.
Amit Shah was addressing the Sugar Industry Seminar and National Efficiency Awards 2022-23 ceremony as the chief guest at Dr. Ambedkar International Center in New Delhi. During the program, Shah also presented National Efficiency Awards in eight sectors of cooperatives.
Shah said that the National Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation Limited (NFCSF) should aim that in the next 2 years all the government sugar mills will become ethanol producing. He said that we should work on making the federation dynamic and not limit it to demand. He said that instead of making a demand driven federation, a dynamic federation should be made and we should work with the aim of prosperity of sugarcane producing farmers.
The Union Cooperative Minister said that when awareness will be created across the world through the Biofuel Alliance, then the biggest benefit will be to our sugarcane farmers and sugar mills. He said that India has set a target of 20 percent ethanol blending by 2030, but we will achieve this target only by 2025-26. He said that from the sale of about 5000 crore liters of petrol, the requirement of ethanol will be 1 thousand crore liters.
The Union Minister said that in the last 10 years, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the country has made progress in every field. He said that in the year 2013-14, the area of sugarcane production was 5 million hectares, which we have succeeded in increasing by about 18 percent to 6 million hectares in just 10 years. Sugarcane production was 352 million tonnes, which has increased by 40 percent to 491 million tonnes today. Similarly, there has been an increase of 19 percent in yield and 58 percent in total sugar production. The production of ethanol and the diversion of sugar in it was zero, which today 4.5 million tonnes of sugar can be diverted to ethanol production. Earlier, 38 crore liters of ethanol was obtained from the sugar industry and its use was limited, which has increased to 370 crore liters today. He said that the direct benefit of all this has gone into the pockets of the farmers.
Amit Shah said that Prime Minister Modi has just held a G-20 meeting and formed the Global Biofuel Alliance. We all know that by setting up the headquarters of the alliance in Gurugram, India has been made the capital of biofuel. He said that whatever you make, whatever sugarcane you produce, Prime Minister Modi has given a platform in the G-20 to export all this to the world and it is a matter of good fortune for our farmers. I am sure that our sugarcane farmers, our cooperatives and other sugar mills will benefit the most from this.
