The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy aims to launch an Integrated Bio Energy Mission with an estimated outlay of Rs 10,000 crore from 2017-18 to 2021-22.

The plan was announced by Varsha Joshi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, at the first meeting of the Bio Energy Advisory Committee of the Ministry held late last month. The Ministry put up the minutes of the meeting on Tuesday.

The Integrated Bio Energy Mission would aim to contribute to achieve greenhouse gas emmissions reduction targets as agreed in the Nationally Determined Contributions at COP 21 in Paris.

According to the minutes of the meeting, Joshi said tht this would be achieved through progressive blending/subsitiution of fossil fuels such as coal, petrol, diesel, natural gas and LPG with biomass pellets, bioethanol, biodiesel, biomethane and similar green fuels for both electricial and non-electrical uses.

Joshi also informed the Bio Energy Advisory Committee that the mission will cover all bio energy sub-sectors and address common issues facing them such as availability of biomass and requirement of crop residue and waste management systems, the need for creating standards for technology and performance, capacity building, involvement of farmers to enhance their income, offtake through OMCs and development of the open market.

It was also decided that a technical committee would be set up under A K Dhussa, former Advisor, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, to formulate the action points into schemes and then to formulate the base document for the Integrated Bio Energy Mission.

Meanwhile, the committee also decided to formulate a complete scheme for supporting feedstock/crop residue supply chain management system for the bio fuels sector.

"This would incorporate an assitance component for harvesting equipment such as balers on the lines of the Punjab Government, setting up of biomass depots and mechanisms for collection, densification, transportation and storage," the minutes of the meeting stated.

Further, the Ministry of New & Renweable Energy will also seek all possible assitance in terms of custom and excise duties for the bio fuels sector.

Upendra Tripathy, Secretary of the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and Chairman of the Bio Energy Committee also directed that the Nataional Insitute of Bio-Energy at Kapurthala should be upgraded and developed into a world class insitution to support the mission.

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