‘Use maize instead of grain for ethanol’
Edited excerpts: Do you think the ethanol target can be met? We have made significant progress on ethanol blending after the policy was changed from molasses to direct sugarcane, maize and rice. We have achieved about 11%. Achieving E20 target by 2025 is a challenge but look at in how many years have we come to 11% from 4-5%.
That gives hope. If we are not able to achieve 20%, can we achieve 16-17%? At present, FCI must buy rice for PDS (public distribution system). As the broken rice cannot be given under PDS, it is being supplied to distilleries half the price.
This is a very inefficient way of doing things. Your economic cost is ₹37 a kg for the rice that you bought, and you pass on the burden to taxpayers by giving subsidies to distilleries that fall under good income groups. So, why do that? What else can the government do? I do feel there is ample opportunity provided you play your cards well.
The temporary ban on broken rice should encourage relying on maize more because rice is the biggest water guzzler. To produce a kilogram of rice, it requires about 5,000 litres of water in Punjab and Haryana. If you rely on maize, you can save 80% of water compared to rice.
The economic cost of rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is about ₹37 a kg. They are giving the broken rice to distilleries at about ₹20 per kg. So, there’s a lot of subsidization.
If they give a similar subsidy on maize, distilleries would love to go for maize and farmers would also love to go for the crop because of the assured price. In Punjab’s maize market, prices are around ₹1,750 a quintal as against the MSP (minimum support price) of ₹2,090. If you replace rice with maize, you need to give farmers the MSP to create an ecosystem as it will
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