NEW DELHI: Over-production of sugar is a problem for the economy; we spend `15 lakh crores per year on the import of petroleum products, hence we need to diversify the agriculture sector towards energy and power sectors, said Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Sunday while addressing the felicitation programme of National Cogeneration Awards 2022 in Mumbai.
The Minister urged the industry to focus on alternative fuels with the help of futuristic technologies. “While 65- 70 per cent of our population depends on agriculture, our agricultural growth rate is 12-13 per cent only; the sugarcane industry and farmers are a growth engine for our industry. And the next move should be cogeneration to increase revenue from sugar. The industry should produce less sugar and produce more byproducts, embracing the vision for futuristic technologies and using the power of leadership to convert knowledge into wealth,” said Gadkari.
This will enable the farmers to become not only food growers but energy producers as well, the minister added. The Minister said that while our requirement was 280 lakh tonnes of sugar this year, the production was more than 360 lakh tonnes.
We need to divert production towards ethanol as the ethanol requirement is very high, the minister said. “Last year’s capacity was 400 crore litres of ethanol; we have taken a lot of initiatives to increase ethanol production. Now is the time for the industry to plan demand for ethanol, using technologies such as power generators run by bioethanol,” Gadkari said. The minister said that even auto-rickshaws can be run on bioethanol.