Indian Government invites fresh applications for ethanol projects

The Indian government has decided to invite fresh applications from those firms that have acquired land for ethanol projects and obtained environmental clearance to set up new distilleries or expansion of existing distilleries.

In order to enhance ethanol production capacities in the country and to achieve 20 per cent blending by 2025, the Government of India has decided to open a window for six months for inviting fresh applications from project proponents.

Ethanol distillation capacity of molasses-based distilleries was only 215 crore litre prior to 2014. However, in the past 7 years due to the policy changes made by the Centre, the capacity of molasses-based distilleries has increased by one and a half times and are currently at 569 crore litre, the government data showed.