Lucknow, Sep 5 The Uttar Pradesh sugar mills are slowly moving towards exclusive production of ethanol as government has proposed to set up a cane juice factory in Pipraich which will produce around 95,000 liters of ethanol per day.
Principal Secretary Sugarcane Sanjay Bhoosereddy said here on Thursday that this state-of-the-art exclusive ethanol factory is first-of-its-kind in north India and will equally help farmers and the mill owners as both stand benefitted from this production.
He said this corporation-owned sugar factory in Pipraich will have a capacity to crush 1250 tonne sugarcane per day. The cane juice produced will be further distilled and transformed into ethanol. This ethanol will be used in blending with petrol, he said
”The ethanol produced here will be sold to Oil Marketing Companies directly. This will be more beneficial for the farmers as well as the sugar mills,” Mr Bhoosereddy said.
The aim is to blend up to 10 per cent ethanol in petrol. The blending of ethanol in petrol had increased by nearly 300 per cent from 38 crore litres in 2013-14 to around 141 crore litres in 2017-18.
On Tuesday last, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had increased the price of ethanol and its price would be binding on the oil companies. Earlier, the price of ethanol from sugarcane juice, sugar, and sugar syrup was Rs 58 per litre but now it has increased to Rs 59.48 per litre.
”A remunerative price for ethanol suppliers will help in reduction of cane farmers’ arrears, in the process contributing to minimising the difficulty of sugar cane farmers,” the official said.
UP to set up cane juice factory to produce ethanol
