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Gasohol launched

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI Jan. 1. Gasohol— petrol with a five per cent ethanol content— intended to help a cleaner environment by cutting down polluting emissions by vehicles and reduce the foreign exchange outgo in buying petrol was launched here today.

Though this would help the sugarcane growing farmer realise a better price for his produce since molasses is a by-product of the sugar sector from which ethanol is made, the quantities produced to admix petrol with it is far too inadequate. This doped petrol could well lead the way to similar mixing with diesel as about 80 per cent of the fuel for automobiles is currently diesel. Studies and trials have proved its efficacy. It produces lower carbon monoxide and dioxide emissions.

The switch to the petrol mixed with ethanol has come too late. Since 1977, the blending has been discussed by a plethora of committees but executing it through the major oil companies had been delayed.

Only when the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, mandated the Petroleum Minister, Ram Naik, to "translate the knowledge in libraries in the form of technical committee reports'' did pilot projects start.

According to Mr. Naik, therefore, though it was mandated that nine sugar producing States were to switch to this gasohol from today, only "Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh could develop the infrastructure to produce anhydrous ethanol.''

Others — Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Pondichery and the four Union Territories — have "sought more time to complete'' the task. Maharashtra, on the other hand, is enthusiastic and sugar sector leaders — both private and the cooperative — have asked that the quantum of ethanol in petrol be raised from five per cent to 10 per cent and more as Brazil, the role model that led to this decision, already allows 22 per cent mixing.

So much so, several speakers urged the decision-makers here that not just ethanol from molasses but from the primary juice of sugarcane be allowed to be extracted, "converting sugar into a by-product'' and enabling higher realisation for sugarcane price in an industry caught in sugar glut.

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