In the 3rd edition of the Sugar and Ethanol India Conference (SEIC 2024) in New Delhi, organized by ChiniMandi from February 1st to February 2nd, 2024, healthy deliberations on various topics, including sugar, sugarcane, ethanol, maize, CBG, value-added products, and others, took place. The conference saw monumental success, with 650-plus participants and renowned speakers and domain experts. The who’s who from the Government corridors, international sugar and trade experts, domestic pundits, agri futurists, etc., congregated on these two days to discuss on sugar, ethanol, and allied industries.
Ashwini Srivastava, Joint Secretary (Sugar), Dept of Food & Public Distribution, sheds light on steps the government is taking to ensure sugar prices remain affordable to all customers across the country and on sugar production scenario.
Addressing the participants, he said, “Sugarcane depends on the vagaries of nature, that is why production varies year to year. This time we are facing a decreasing trend. Let me assure you that the government remains committed to maintain a balanced and fair sugar market. Our efforts are in at ensuring sugar prices remain affordable to all customers across the country.”
Speaking on the ethanol scenario, he said, “Recently, the government restricted the diversion of sugarcane juice and B Heavy Molasses to ethanol just to ensure sugar is available at an affordable price to the public, as trends are forecasted that next year also this trend will be similar, further decreasing so we need to handle that. To meet the target of 20 per cent blending, we need around 1016 crore litres ethanol by 2025 and in addition around 334 crore litres for other industrial use, totaling 1350 crore ethanol, and for that if the industry is working with 80 per cent capacity, then our requirement will be around 1700 crore litres capacity. We introduced the ethanol subvention scheme, and with the help of that scheme, we have touched 1400 crore litres capacity as of now.”
“The other area where we are focusing is grain-based ethanol industries. Now we are encouraging distilleries to produce ethanol from maize, and to promote the same, we have increased the price of ethanol produced from maize recently. We know that without industry support, we cannot achieve the 20 per cent target. Policy interventions will be continued depending on production of sugarcane and availability of other feedstocks. I want to assure you that policy intervention very frequently required, and the government is also keen that you should first make priority the availability of sugar for the public at an affordable price, followed by our ethanol blended with petrol programme and our 20 per cent target,” he further added.
