Bio Fuel Day – A Peek Into India’s Future
Bio Fuel Day – A Peek Into India’s Future
Significance of the World Bio Fuel Day:
The World Bio-fuel Day is celebrated every year on 10th August to commemorate the anniversary of the successful working of a diesel engine, run on peanut oil, by German innovator Rudolf Diesel in 1893. Diesel predicted vegetable oil to take over fossil fuels in the coming century.
Bio Fuel Scene Of India :
At the National Conference on the World Bio Fuel Day 2016 in New Delhi named ‘Energy Security for India – Creating a Bio-fuel Economy’ MoPNG minister Shri. Dharmendra Pradhan estimated the potential of biofuel business in India to grow from present Rs 6500 crore to Rs 1 lakh crore in the next 10 years. India under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi targets to reduce crude oil import by 10 percent by the year 2022. And, how is that possible? – The answer lies in the extensive potential of Bio Energy – Bio Fuels to be used as alternate fuels. The Petroleum ministry under the flagship of Modi government has been actively pursuing the Bio Fuel Program with ethanol blending, biodiesel as well as using the biowaste for converting to energy but as India’s energy consumption is increasing very fast and it has become the third largest consumer in the world, more on the Bio fuel front needs to be done speedily.
IOC, BPC, HPC and NRL have identified 10 locations for setting up 2G ethanol plants with an estimated investment of Rs 5000 crore. Private players like CMC Bio-refineries, Praj Industries Ltd., Munzer, Novozymes and Shell have also announced an investment of Rs 5000 crore in the field of Bio-fuels in India.
Ministry of Petroleum Natural gas has given a big push for the Ethanol blending program and is close to achieving 4% blending during the current sugar year. The bio diesel blending program which was started a year ago on 10 August 2015 as a pilot in 5 cities has now been extended to 6 states and Bio- diesel blended diesel is sold through nearly 2200 retail outlets in the country. The Government has also allowed production of ethanol from alternate routes.
Bio Fuel Program – The Way Ahead :
The biofuel programme has the capacity to provide better remuneration for farmers, address environmental concerns, reduce dependence on imports and help in foreign exchange savings. Government is willing to provide conducive policy environment to support development of biofuel but import of raw material or waste for this purpose cannot be allowed.
Skill and scale are important for success of any programme and they should be included in the biofuel programme also. Biofuels are closely linked to increasing the quality of life of the common man as they would provide a sustainable way to convert human generated wastes to energy and reduce pollution as well. However, a major challenge that faces the sector is the sustainable availability of feedstock for the bio-fuel generation plants.
Bio Fuel Program needs active participation of vairous stakeholders of the Bio-fuel sector viz., the Government, Public Sector Undertakings and the Private Sector, to make it a success.