Rs 500-crore plant to produce ethanol from crop stubble

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 11

The state will soon have its first bioethanol production plant in Bathinda at an estimated cost of Rs500 crore. The plant to be set up by the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas will convert crop residue into ethanol, besides reducing pollution. It is expected to provide an additional income source of Rs4,000 crore annually to farmers by buying around 50 lakh tonnes of paddy straw from them.

This was stated by Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan who along with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal was here to distribute 700 free-of-cost gas connections among below poverty line (BPL) families under the Ujjawala scheme.

Pradhan said the agrarian state could also help end the dependency of the country for fuel on Gulf and central Asian countries.

“Even after so many years of Independence, we are still relying on Gulf nations, Russia, Iraq, Latin America and even Canada for our oil products. Punjab burns around 50 lakh tonnes of paddy and wheat straw every year and by converting it into a fuel blend, we can slowly end oil dependency on other countries,” said Pradhan.

Sukhbir said, “Around 7 lakh out of 65 lakh households still do not have an LPG connection. In 45 days, every house in the state will have a smoke-free kitchen.”

He also announced that to stop pollution further, an ethanol plant would be set up in every district of the state.

Under the Ujjawala scheme, while the Union Government is providing a LPG gas connection along with a free cylinder and a regulator, the Punjab Government is also providing a free-of-cost cooking stove to the BPL families.

As the Union Government is only giving free-of-cost gas connections to the Scheduled Castes and other reserved categories, the Deputy CM announced that families of the general category would also be covered under the scheme and the money for the gas connections would be paid by the state government.

Some beneficiaries said that at home, they already had LPG gas connections which were bought on the black market. The families, however, welcomed the move and said this would help reduce the black marketing of LPG cylinder in the long run.