Gadkari calling for alternative fuels to ease India’s growing crude oil import bills

09 Jul 2018 Evaluate

Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari is calling for alternative fuels in order to ease India’s growing crude oil import bills and also to create other sources of income for farmers, who comprise more than 50 percent of the country’s population. He noted that alternative fuels are cleaner and cheaper.  Besides, he said that the use of ethanol, methanol, bio-compressed natural gas, dimethyl ether and electricity should be increased as alternatives to crude oil, 70 percent of which has to be imported. He added that the benefit of these alternative fuels is that its raw material is available in the country and can be sourced in large quantities from the agricultural sector and it will help farmers increase their income too.

Talking about financial strain crude oil imports place on the country, Gadkari said that they spend Rs 7 lakh crore annually to import crude oil. He also said that the economy is facing challenges - one of which is the heavy crude import bill. He added that the rupee's fall against the US dollar is also related to this. Adding further, he said that increasing production of oil within the country has its limitations and noted that imports comprise 70 percent of crude oil demands while domestic generation stood at only 30 percent.

The minister said “At present, ethanol is received from sugar mills and we mix 5 per cent of it to petrol. This mix can be raised up to 22 per cent but we do not produce ethanol in large quantity. Currently, we get about 4 per cent ethanol after crushing one tonne of sugarcane.” He also said that the government has allowed the use of B-heavy molasses for ethanol production to increase its production. He said “Once ethanol availability goes up, we can blend more of it with petrol.” However, he is not satisfied with these small steps and has decided to go for vehicles which are capable of running on 100 percent ethanol or methanol.


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