Energy Providers – Farmers’ New Role; From Food Providers to Energy Providers  

Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways Government of India

Bioenergy is a promise for the better future of India and indeed a win-win situation for our country. It has the potential to address several issues being faced by the country- from income to independence, savings to sustainability and employment to entrepreneurship. It has the potential to increase farmers’ income, make the nation self-sufficient in fuels with oil import substitutes, save the country’s huge funds, provide a sustainable alternative in the energy sector, grow employment prospects and provide entrepreneurship opportunities, particularly in the MSME sector. Let’s explore this further.

I have been observing and saying that we need to find alternative to fossil fuel. Oil import for fossil fuels like petrol, diesel and gas is currently costing our country Rs 18 lakh crore per year. Thus, the oil import Bill is a matter of serious concern for our economy. Finding alternatives to fuel imports to save the nation’s fund is paramount for our economy. If this huge amount being spent on oil import is saved, it can be utilised for the development of the country.

Secondly, fossil fuels pose serious threat to environment in terms of pollution they cause. This is a matter of serious concern as it could lead to increase in the respiratory and lungs related diseases. Reduction in pollution and moving towards sustainability is also possible by biofuels and bioenergy. One more cause for very serious pollution in parts of North India is burning stubbles in the farm after harvesting. Interestingly, stubble burning and bioenergy are complementary to each other. The stubbles can be used for bioenergy resolving three issues at a time – a) giving farmers income for waste which they are burning 2) converting the stubbles into biomass for different forms of bioenergy and 3) providing a solution to the problem of pollution caused by stubble burning.

Focusing on bioenergy development will also lead to farmers’ development. The condition of the agriculture sector in India is not satisfactory. Despite having surplus production of wheat, sugar, rice and corn, the agriculture sector is contributing only 12 to 14 per cent to the GDP of the country and the fact remains that almost 65 per cent of the population of the country is dependent on agriculture for livelihood. As a result, the rural population, particularly poor, unemployed and small farmers, has to face serious problems. To improve their condition, the agriculture sector’s contribution to the GDP should be more than 25 per cent and for that we need to go for the crop diversification – shifting our focus to energy crops.

Shifting to Viable Alternatives

Diversification of agriculture towards power and energy generation is the need of the hour. We have shifted our focus on the production of ethanol, methanol, Bio-CNG, Bio-LNG, Bio-bitumen and hydrogen (Green fuel). Alternative energy, green fuel, bio energy are very important for the development of the country.

To increase the use of alternate fuels, the government has launched various schemes like blending petrol with ethanol, producing first, second and third generations ethanol, allowing mixing lignin in bitumen etc. Recently the union cabinet has approved the production of ethanol from sugarcane, bamboo, B-molasses and C-molasses, foodgrains and broken rice and corn.

India is having surplus production of sugar, and the rate of sugar is less in the Brazil market. Hence, it is advisable to use surplus sugarcane for the production of ethanol. We have already started blending 15 per cent ethanol in petrol and very soon we will achieve the 20 per cent ethanol blending target. Automobile companies have started the production of cars fitted with flex engines which run fully on ethanol. Toyota has already produced flex engine cars and others like Tata, Suzuki are also about to launch flex engine cars. The flex engines generate 60 per cent of electric power and require 40 per cent of ethanol. If you compare the cost with petrol, the flex engine vehicles cost only Rs 25 per litre.

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Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport &