{"id":52029,"date":"2019-09-10T19:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T13:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=52029"},"modified":"2019-09-10T18:29:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T12:59:45","slug":"7-pm-sweet-freedom-10th-september-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-sweet-freedom-10th-september-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | Sweet Freedom | 10th September, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:\n<\/strong>Ethanol\nBlending Petrol programme can give solution to the surplus sugarcane production\nin India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>More\nin news:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The government in July\ndecided not to hike the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of sugarcane for the\n2019-20 season (October-September).<\/li><li>The government approved\nan increase in the price of ethanol to be procured by public sector oil\nmarketing companies (OMCs) from sugar mills for blending with petrol for the\n2019-20.<strong><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sugar\nIndustry in India: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>India is the second largest producer and\nthe largest consumer of sugar in the world. <\/li><li>India contributes about 15 percent of\nworld sugar production and has annual production of about 25-28 million tonnes\nin recent past. <\/li><li>Presently, about 5 million hectares of\nland is under sugarcane cultivation with annual production of about 356 million\ntonnes and average yield of around 71 tonnes per hectare in 2015-16. <\/li><li>Sugarcane contributes about 5 percent to\nthe total value of output from agriculture and accounts for about 2.6 percent\nof gross cropped area. <\/li><li>About 50 million sugarcane farmers and a\nlarge number of agricultural labourers are involved in sugarcane cultivation\nand ancillary activities; therefore, the sector is an important driver of rural\neconomy. <\/li><li>In India, there are mainly two distinct\nagro-climatic regions of sugarcane cultivation, namely tropical and\nsubtropical. However, for the purpose of varietal development, five\nagro-climatic zones have been identified namely, (i) North-Western Zone (ii)\nNorth-Central Zone (iii) North-Eastern Zone (iv) Peninsular Zone and (v)\nCoastal Zone.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Commission\nfor Agricultural Costs and Prices: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Commission for Agricultural Costs and\nPrices (CACP) was set up with a view to evolve a balanced and integrated price\nstructure, is mandated to advise on the price policy (MSP) of 23 crops. <\/li><li>These include: <\/li><li>seven\ncereal crops (paddy, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi and barley), <\/li><li>five\npulse crops (gram, tur, moong, urad and lentil), <\/li><li>seven\noilseeds (groundnut, sunflower seed, soybean, rapeseed-mustard, safflower,\nnigerseed and sesamum), <\/li><li>copra\n(dried coconut), cotton, raw jute and sugarcane {Fair and Remunerative prices\n(FRP)}. <\/li><li>CACP submits its recommendations to the\ngovernment in the form of Price Policy Reports every year, separately for five\ngroups of commodities namely Kharif crops, Rabi crops, Sugarcane, Raw Jute and\nCopra. <\/li><li>Before preparing these five price policy\nreports, the Commission seeks views of various Central Ministries, State\nGovernments, Farmers, Farmers Association and Research Institutes.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What is Ethanol?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Ethanol is basically\nalcohol of 99%-plus purity, which can be used for blending with petrol. <\/li><li>The normal rectified\nspirit used for potable purposes has only 95% alcohol content. <\/li><li>Both ethanol (also\ncalled anhydrous alcohol) and rectified spirit are produced mainly from\nmolasses, a byproduct of sugar manufacture. <\/li><li>Mills typically crush\ncane with a total fermentable sugars (TFS) content of about 14%. <\/li><li>Much of this TFS \u2013 sucrose, glucose and fructose gets\ncrystallised into sugar. <\/li><li>The un-crystallised, non-recoverable part goes into what is\ncalled \u2018C\u2019 molasses. <\/li><li>Every 100 kg of TFS, in\nturn, yields 60 litres of ethanol. Thus, from one tonne of cane, mills can\nproduce 115 kg of sugar (at 11.5% recovery) and 45 kg of molasses (18 kg TFS)\nthat gives 10.8 litres of ethanol.<\/li><li>The\nmolasses can be diverted after the earlier \u2018A\u2019 and \u2018B\u2019 stages of sugar crystal\nformation. <\/li><li>Mills, then, would produce some sugar, as opposed\nto fermenting the whole sugarcane juice into ethanol. &nbsp;<\/li><li>If ethanol is manufactured using \u2018B\u2019 heavy\nmolasses (7.25% of cane and with TFS of 50%), around 21.75 litres will get\nproduced along with 95 kg of sugar from every 1 tonne of cane.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Government has been\nimplementing Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme wherein OMCs sell petrol\nblended with ethanol up to 10%. <\/li><li>This programme has been\nextended to whole of India except Union Territories of Andaman Nicobar and\nLakshadweep islands with effect from 01st April, 2019 to promote the use of\nalternative and environment friendly fuels. <\/li><li>This intervention also\nseeks to reduce import dependence for energy requirements and give boost to\nagriculture sector.<\/li><li>Government has notified\nadministered price of ethanol since 2014. For the first time during 2018,\ndifferential price of ethanol based on raw material utilized for ethanol production\nwas announced by the Government. <\/li><li>These decisions have\nsignificantly improved the supply of ethanol thereby ethanol procurement by\nPublic Sector OMCs has increased from 38 crore litre in ethanol supply year\n2013-14 to estimated over 200 crore litre in 2018-19.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What has government done?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Given the\nsurplus sugar production in the country, it has allowed mills to produce\nethanol from \u2018B\u2019 heavy molasses and directly from sugarcane juice. <\/li><li>The CCEA\napproved even use of sugar and sugar syrup for production of ethanol; mills can\nsimply add these to the molasses mother liquor for further fermentation.<\/li><li>The CCEA approval\nincludes fixing higher ethanol price derived from different raw materials under\nthe EBP Programme for the forthcoming sugar season 2019-20 during ethanol\nsupply year from 1st December 2019 to 30th November 2020:<\/li><li>The price of ethanol from C heavy\nmolasses route be increased from Rs.43.46 per lit to Rs.43.75 per litre,<\/li><li>The price of ethanol from B heavy\nmolasses route be increased from Rs.52.43 per lit to Rs.54.27 per litre,<\/li><li>The price of ethanol from sugarcane\njuice\/sugar\/sugar syrup route be fixed at Rs.59.48 per litre,<\/li><li>Additionally, GST and transportation\ncharges will also be payable. OMCs have been advised to fix realistic\ntransportation charges so that long distance transportation of ethanol is not\ndisincentivised,<\/li><li>OMCs are advised to continue according\npriority of ethanol from 1) sugarcane juice\/sugar\/sugar syrup, 2) B heavy\nmolasses 3) C heavy molasses and 4) Damaged Food grains\/other sources, in that\norder,<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How\nall this will help?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>There is a huge\nincentive to produce ethanol today. This has been additionally facilitated by\nthe government mandating 10% blending of petrol with ethanol.<\/li><li>If mills are able to\ndivert more of cane juice for ethanol, it would mean producing less sugar.\nSince the country is producing too much sugar and is importing oil, the\nethanol-blending programme is beneficial both for mills and for the country\u2019s\nbalance of payments.<\/li><li>Remunerative price to ethanol suppliers\nwill help in reduction of cane farmer\u2019s arrears, in the process contributing to\nminimizing difficulty of sugarcane farmers.<\/li><li>Increased ethanol blending in petrol has\nmany benefits including reduction in import dependency, support to agricultural\nsector, more environmental friendly fuel, lesser pollution and additional\nincome to farmers.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\nNext?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The logical\nnext step should be to dismantle the monthly sale quotas and minimum selling\nprice restrictions imposed currently on mills. <\/li><li>Simultaneously,\nthe government must push states to implement a transparent cane pricing\nformula, linking this to a certain minimum percentage of mills\u2019 average\nrealisations from the sale of sugar, ethanol and co-generation power.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source:\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/editorials\/sugar-millers-farmers-ethanol-price-narendra-modi-government-5978101\/\">https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/editorials\/sugar-millers-farmers-ethanol-price-narendra-modi-government-5978101\/<\/a><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: Ethanol Blending Petrol programme can give solution to the surplus sugarcane production in India. More in news: The government in July decided not to hike the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of sugarcane for the 2019-20 season (October-September). The government approved an increase in the price of ethanol to be procured by public sector&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-sweet-freedom-10th-september-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | Sweet Freedom | 10th September, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704765356},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}