Ethanol Production from Sugarcane in Uttar Pradesh

• 28 Sep 2021

Why in News

• On September 27, 2021, Uttar Pradesh Sugar Industry Minister Suresh Rana said in a press conference that Uttar Pradesh will start ethanol production directly from sugarcane from the next sugarcane crushing season starting from October 2021.
  
  • Ethanol to be used for blending with petrol will be produced at PSU Pipraich Chini Mill, Gorakhpur and Balrampur Chini Mill.

Key Points

• It is worth mentioning that the state government decided to make ethanol directly from sugarcane in October 2020 and for this a pilot project was started at Pipraich sugar mill.
• Uttar Pradesh is the top producer of ethanol in India.
  
  • It has 53 ethanol producing distilleries and has an annual installed capacity of 158.44 crore liters.
• Uttar Pradesh produced 42.70 crore liters of ethanol in the financial year 2016-17, which increased to 99.31 crore liters in 2020-21.
  
  • There are 72 distilleries in Uttar Pradesh, of which 25 are standalone and 47 are attached to sugar mills.
• He said that due to an increase in the State Advisory Price of sugarcane for the next crushing season 2021-22, farmers would get an additional benefit of more than Rs 4,000 crore.
• Minister Rana said that against the demand of Rs 33,014 crore, sugar mills have so far paid Rs 28,015 crore to farmers for the 2020-21 season. From 2017 to 2021 (September 21), Rs 1.44 lakh crore has been paid to farmers.
• He further said that till 2016-17, three varieties of sugarcane were cultivated, where the share of early high yielding varieties was only 52%, which has now increased to 98%. Sugarcane productivity in the state was 66 MT per hectare in 2016-17, which increased to 81.05 MT per hectare in 2020-21.
• He also said that during the pandemic, the operations of sugar mills were not disrupted and Uttar Pradesh remained on top in the field of sugarcane, sugar production and ethanol production.