Nashik: Sugar mills should focus on byproducts apart from sugar production to increase income, Maharashtra cooperation and marketing minister Balasaheb Patil.
He was speaking at Dindori in Nashik district while inaugurating crushing season of the Kadwa cooperative sugar mill.
According to the news report published in The Times of India, he said, “There has been an excessive production of sugar and sugar mills also need to produce byproducts to make the factors viable.”
“The Union government has announced incentives for ethanol production from the sugarcane. The state government has also set a target of producing 10 lakh metric tonne ethanol this year. Sugar mill should focus on increasing ethanol production to improve its financial condition,” he further added.
Recently, Fitch Solutions had stated that India’s ethanol consumption will increase over the next few years, driven primarily by the government’s desire to support the sugar sector by boosting ethanol production but also because of the recovery in road travel following Covid-19 disruptions.
The central government with an aim to lower the expenditure on foreign exchange has set a target of blending 20 per cent ethanol with petrol by 2025. The roadmap for ethanol blending in India 2020-25 was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 5 this year on the occasion of World Environment Day.
