Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 15

The Centre today said maize would play an equal role as sugarcane in helping India increase its ethanol distillation capacity and achieve the 20 per cent blending target by 2025.

The Ethanol Blending Programme is expected to save foreign exchange of more than Rs 30,000 crore on account of crude oil import bill, reduce dependence on imported fossil fuel and help achieve the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat in the petroleum sector, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey today said, briefing on the future course of the green fuel.

Pandey said the roadmap for ethanol blending has already been shared with automobile manufacturers. Meanwhile in 2021-22, about 35 LMT of sugar is estimated to be diverted to ethanol which will increase to 60 LMT by 2025.