The Hindu Business Line : Encourage cane-based alcohol units: Expert

THE failure of the project for supplying alcohol-mixed petrol (called gasohol in the US) is not surprising, considering the manner in which the scheme has been pursued in India, but it can be made a success, if the Government encourages cane-based alcohol units, says Dr N.A. Ramaiah, the former director of the National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.

Dr. Ramaiah said in an interview that basically the scheme was a good one as it would result in saving of petrol and precious foreign exchange.

``The scheme was launched on a pilot basis in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh by the then NDA Government for supply of petrol blended with 5 per cent alcohol and the results were encouraging. Subsequently, the scheme was extended to Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Haryana and some districts of Andhra Pradesh,'' he said.

But, he said, the oil companies could get only 1,95,996 kilolitres of alcohol as against the required quantity of 3,68,000 KL to keep the scheme going in the first phase. Due to the difficulties in procuring alcohol, the oil companies recommended to the ministry to suspend the scheme and ''it has been suspended.''

He said the assumption that the distilleries attached to the sugar factories would supply alcohol to the project was not a tenable one. The sugar factories had invested huge amounts in setting up the distilleries for supply of alcohol to the chemical units and other industrial units. Therefore, the ministry could not get them to sign a memorandum of understanding with the oil companies.

He suggested that separate cane-based alcohol units be set up for the purpose and there need be no apprehensions on the economic viability of such units. A factory with a capacity to crush 5,000 tonnes of cane could be set up at a cost of Rs 50 crores. Employing modern technologies, 100 litres of alochol could be extracted out of a tonne and the factory would generate 5,00,000 litres (500 KL) per day. With a crushing season of 180 days every year, 90,000 KL could be produced.

He urged the Union Government to encourage setting up of such units in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and other major cane-growing States. The private sector should also be roped in, he added.

Dr Ramaiah said there was an additional advantage as the units could take up co-generation (power generation) with bagasse, the by-product. A 5,000-tonne capacity unit would produce 1,500 tonnes of bagasse, according to his estimate, which could be used for co-generation.

He said the present market price of alcohol was Rs 30 a litre and the production cost of alcohol produced from molasses was Rs 22-25 a litre. The cost of producing alcohol from cane directly would be Rs 15 or a little more.

He said Dr. Swaminathan, the eminent agricultural scientist, had suggested long ago that India should have factories to produce alcohol directly from cane. ''It will be of great help to the farmers, the industry and the country in general. Suspending the scheme is no solution. It is in fact a retrograde step,'' he said.

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