NIZAMABAD: To reduce dependency on petrol imports to address India’s growing demand, the Union government has been encouraging alternative fuels such as ethanol-blended petrol. This could play a huge role in developing Nizamabad district, which is known for its sugarcane cultivation, from which ethanol is produced. Sources said the Centre has decided to blend as much as 30 per cent of ethanol in petrol by October in comparison to the 10 per cent allowed currently.
Industry leaders said experiments to increase the ethanol content to 15 per cent in petrol began on Monday (May 2). Only a few selected regions would get to test the new fuel. The findings of the experiment would be available to officials in a month. If the government plans to implement it, oil refineries would require a large quantity of ethanol.
Though known for sugarcane cultivation, the Nizamabad district has two closed sugar producing units — Nizam Deccan Sugars Limited and Nizamabad Cooperative Sugar Factories (NCSF). However, of the two private sugar factories running in the neighbouring Kamareddy district, one unit has already started ethanol production. If the Centre gives a green flag to the shift to higher ethanol content in petrol, the closed sugar factories could restart, helping address the farmers and unemployed youth in the district.
Recently, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said the Centre was planning to produce ethanol with the help of sugarcane, maize and broken rice in agricultural areas and oil firms would buy ethanol under the pre-agreement.
Seeing the developments, a local industrialist and a Congress leader recently met Gadkari in Nagpur to discuss the establishment of ethanol-producing units in the district. It was learnt that the Minister, citing the exams of units in Maharastra, told them that if new ethanol-producing units were to be established, the owners could get huge profits. On Monday, a delegation of farmers met Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan demanding the reopening of the Nizam Deccan Sugars Limited in Muthyampet.