CCEA Okays Ethanol Procurement Price
Recently, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved an increase in the price of ethanol Procurement to benefit sugarcane farmers.
The Cabinet has given its approval to fix higher price of ethanol for the upcoming sugar season 2021-22. The decision pertains to ethanol obtained from various sugarcane based raw materials under the Ethanol Procurement Blended Petrol (EBP) programme.
Oil PSUs will also be given freedom to decide the price of 2G (second generation) ethanol, as it will help in setting up advanced bio-fuel refineries.
Benefits of this decision:
- Price stability and remunerative price realization will be possible for ethanol suppliers.
- This will help in reducing the arrears of sugarcane farmers and dependence on crude oil imports.
- Foreign exchange savings and environmental benefits will increase.
- The government is implementing the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) program. Under this, oil marketing companies sell ethanol blended petrol up to 10%.
- The program has been extended to the whole of India except Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep.
- The government has set a target of reaching 10% blending of ethanol by the year 2022 and 20% blending by the year
Different generations of bio fuels have been defined on the basis of the raw material used for production:
- 1G – Bio-ethanol: Synthesis of maize seeds and sugarcane.
- 2G – Bio-ethanol: The remaining non-agricultural waste is used after crop production.
- 3G: Microorganisms are used.
- 4G: Fourth generation biofuel are the result of developments in plant biology and biotechnology (metabolic engineering) in the field of carbon capture and storage technique.
- The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for dedicated price support for Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) during the cotton season 2014-15 to 2020-21.
- Price support helps in stabilizing the prices and easing the economic distress of the farmers.
- Cotton is one of the most important cash crops. It plays a major role in sustaining the livelihood of about 58 lakh cotton producing farmers as well as 400 to 500 lakh people engaged in cotton processing and trade.
Source – PIB
