Patna, (Bihar Times): Chief minister Nitish Kumar has
called upon the Centre to have a rethink on the new
ethanol policy.
In a letter to the Union agriculture minister, Sharad
Paswar, he said the recent amendment to the Sugarcane
Control Order 1966 effected by the UPA government will
cause Bihar to lose 35 investment proposals worth Rs
20,000 crore for the production of ethanol. Bihar is
promoting investment in setting up plants to provide
bio-fuel produced directly from the sugarcane juice.
Nitish reminded the Union agriculture minister that
the Prime Minister had in a letter to him last
December also stressed the merit and urgency of
ethanol blending programme as India is one of the
largest producers of sugarcane in the world. Since
augumentation in production of ethanol would decrease
fuel requirement allowing its direct production from
sugarcane juice was in the interest of Bihar as well
as the country, the letter said.
It needs to be mentioned that the Union ministry of
Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution amended
the Sugarcane Control Order 1966 in December last to
allow only existing sugar mills to produce ethanol
directly from sugarcane juince. The Centre as well as
the state are under pressure from the environmentalist
groups and agriculture experts not to produce ethanol
directly from sugarcane.
According to them to say that producing ethanol is
bio-friendly is a myth as sugarcane grown in the less
fertile area leads to the depletion of underground
water table, as the growers had to rely on
groundwater. There is no dearth of people, especially
farmers, who attribute last year’s fall in state’s
agriculture production by 26.04 per cent to the shift
from foodgrains to sugarcane.
