Mumbai: Over-production of sugar is a problem for the economy. We spend Rs 15 lakh crore per year for the import of petroleum products, and hence we need to diversify the agriculture sector towards energy and power sectors, said Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari while addressing the felicitation programme of National Cogeneration Awards-2022 here on Saturday.

The Minister exhorted the industry of the crucial need to focus on alternative fuels with the help of futuristic technologies. “While 65 per cent – 70 per cent of our population depends on agriculture, our agricultural growth rate is 12 per cent – 13 per cent only; the sugarcane industry and farmers are a growth engine for our industry. And the next move should be cogeneration to increase revenue from sugar. The industry should produce less sugar and produce more by-products, embracing the vision for futuristic technologies and using the power of leadership to convert knowledge into wealth.” This will enable the farmers to become not only food growers, but energy producers as well, he said.

The Minister said that while our requirement was 280 lakh tonnes of sugar this year, the production was more than 360 lakh tonnes; this could be utilised due to the situation in Brazil.  However, we need to divert production towards ethanol as the ethanol requirement is very high, the Minister pointed out. “Last year's capacity was 400 crore litres of ethanol; we have taken a lot of initiatives to increase ethanol production. Now is the time for the industry to plan demand for ethanol, using technologies such as power generators run by bio-ethanol.” /BI/