Utilization of excess sugarcane for ethanol production

Government has taken various measures to improve viability of sugar industry, thereby enabling sugar mills to make timely payment of cane dues of farmers.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020

 Key-Points

Going forward, diversion of excess sugarcane and sugar is the long term solution for addressing the problem of excess stock and improving viability of sugar industry.

Ethanol is a green fuel & its blending with petrol also saves the country’s foreign exchange.

As producers of ethanol (sugar mills), buyers of ethanol (OMCs) and the lenders (banks) are willing to enter into a tri-partite agreement (TPA) about producing, buying and paying for the ethanol through an escrow account etc., the banks can consider giving loans to sugar mills even with weak balance sheets.

This would facilitate mills to avail loans from banks to set up new distilleries or to expand their existing distilleries, thereby enhancing the overall distillation capacity in the country and thus would help in achieving the blending target under Ethanol Blended with Petrol programme.

It was assured by the States and industry that efforts would be made to increase supply of ethanol in the current as well as in ensuing ethanol supply years.