Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has stressed the need to diversify excess agricultural production towards the energy sector.
Addressing the members of various trade bodies in Mangaluru late on Monday evening, Gadkari said the country is surplus in rice, sugar, and corn production. Once upon a time, the country’s problem was shortage of foodgrains. Now, there is a shortage of storage capacity. In Punjab and Haryana, rice and wheat are just on the railway platform. So much production is there, he said.
“That is the reason that we need to diversify agriculture towards energy and power sector,” he said, adding one tonne of broken rice gives 480 litres of bio-ethanol, and 1 tonne of corn gives 280 litres of bio-ethanol.
Stating that the country has got enormous potential to make bio-fuel, he said now 10 per cent ethanol is being added in petrol.
“I had an interaction with Russian scientists two months ago. They made a presentation. There is difference in the calorific value of petrol and ethanol. So they gave me the presentation by which the calorific value of petrol and ethanol will be same,” he said, adding with this the country can make ethanol from molasses, sugarcane, rice, and corn, and the second generation ethanol from biomass and bamboo.
Time to head towards an ethanol economy
Considering the country’s import bill on petroleum products, this is the time the country can head towards an ethanol economy. The minister said he had met several automobile manufacturers in this regard. Vikram Kirloskar of Toyota has agreed to make cars with flexible fuel engines. He explained that people can use either 100 per cent petrol or 100 per cent bio-ethanol in the flexible fuel engines.
He hoped that ethanol can be import substitute, cost-effective, pollution free, and indigenous. This is going to be helpful for Indian agriculture sector, he said.
Gadkari said the country is expecting around 300 industries to prepare bio-ethanol in the next two years. At present, India’s ethanol production is 400 crore litres.
“By adding 20 per cent ethanol in petrol, our requirement will be 1,000 crore litres. With flexible fuel engines if we can use ethanol, our requirement will be 2,000 crore litres,” he said.