The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JUNE 5, 2022
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that India has achieved the target of 10 per cent ethanol blending in petrol ahead of schedule.
The Prime Minister was speaking at a programme on ‘Save Soil Movement’ at Vigyan Bhawan here.
‘Save Soil Movement’ is a global movement – started by Sadhguru in March 2022 – to increase awareness about deteriorating soil health and bring about a conscious response to improve it.
“Today India has achieved the target of 10 per cent ethanol blending in petrol. You will also feel proud to know that India has reached this target five months ahead of schedule,” the Prime Minister said.
“We had set a target to get 40 per cent of our installed power generation capacity from non-fossil-fuel based sources. India has achieved this target nine years ahead of schedule,” he added.
With the aim to enhance India’s energy security, reduce import dependency on fuel, save foreign exchange, address environmental issues and give a boost to domestic agriculture sector, India has been promoting the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme. The ‘National Policy on Biofuels’ notified by the Government in 2018 envisaged an indicative target of 20 per cent ethanol blending in petrol by year 2030. However, considering the encouraging performance, due to various interventions made by the Government since 2014, the target of 20 per cent ethanol blending was advanced from 2030 to 2025-26.
A “Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020-25” was also released by the Prime Minister in June, 2021 which lays out a detailed pathway for achieving 20 per cent ethanol blending. This roadmap also mentioned an intermediate milestone of 10 per cent blending to be achieved by November, 2022.
With all the initiatives taken by the Government, the EBP Programme is on track to achieve the target of 20 per cent blending by 2025-26.
