Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Monday said that the Indian government is taking various steps to promote biofuels.
Addressing the seminar, ‘Only One Earth – a discussion on Environment’ at the India Pavilion, EXPO2020 Dubai virtually, Goyal said, “As a leading agri-producer, we are taking significant efforts to promote biofuels. Now, food grains waste and sugarcane are converted into ethanol in a big way, with the ethanol blending programme making rapid strides. It used to be 1 per cent then this year between 9-10 per cent and next two years we hope to take the blending to 20 per cent, to reduce our dependence on import of crude oil and make our petrol vehicle more sustainable and support efforts towards net-zero by 2070.”
India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer, depends on foreign supply to meet its 80 per cent demand. To save on foreign expenditure, last year, the country announced to increase ethanol blending by 20 per cent by 2025 which was earlier set at 2030.
