Chennai: Following the Union government’s initiative to move from fossil fuel to future fuels, the Tamil Nadu government has announced to unveil policies for Green and Blue Hydrogen and Ethanol, reports The New Indian Express.
The government is planning to produce ethanol locally and sell it to Oil Marketing Companies. The Ethanol Policy will be in resonance with the Central government’s National Policy on Biofuels which has set a target of 20 per cent ethanol blending in petrol by 2025.
According to the Indian government, production of ethanol has increased from 173 crore litres in ESY 2019-20 to 302 crore litres during ESY 2020-21 (October 2020 to Sept 2021). Thus, Ethanol blending has increased by 62%, from 5% in ESY 2019-20 to 8.1% in ESY 2020-21. Production capacity of ethanol in the country has also increased to 825 crore litres as on 30.09.2021 which is sufficient to meet target of 10% ethanol blending in ESY 2021-22. This production capacity has further increased to 849 crore litres till 31.3.2022. During the financial year 2021-22, Rs.160 Crore were released to NABARD, the nodal bank, under the Ethanol Interest Subvention Scheme of the Department. The cumulative released under the Scheme till 2021-22 is Rs.360 Crores.
