New Delhi: The central government on Monday said it has allowed the surplus rice available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to be converted to ethanol for making alcohol-based hand sanitisers.
Sanitisers are in high demand during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has claimed 559 lives in India so far and has infected more than 17,000. But the move to utilise the surplus rice to produce ethanol could fuel controversy in the backdrop of millions of people starving due to the nationwide lockdown imposed to arrest the spread of the coronavirus.
According to official data, the government has a total of 58.49 million tonnes of foodgrain in FCI godowns of which rice is 30.97 million tonnes and wheat 27.52 million tonnes.
The foodgrain stock is much higher than the required norm of maintaining a reserve of about 21 million tonnes as on April 1.
Under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), the government is supplying 5kg of foodgrain per month to over 80 crore people at a highly subsidised price of Rs 2-3 per kg. The government has also decided to distribute 5kg of foodgrain per person free of cost for the next three months to provide relief to poor people during the ongoing lockdown.
In a statement, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said a section of the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018, allows for the conversion of surplus quantities of food grains to ethanol, based on the approval of the National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC), during an agriculture crop year when there is projected oversupply of food grains as anticipated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the NBCC chaired by Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, which "approved that the surplus rice available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) may be converted to ethanol for utilisation in making alcohol-based hand-sanitisers and in blending for Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme".
The government had recently allowed sugar companies and distilleries to make hand sanitisers using ethanol. Sugar companies supply ethanol to oil marketing companies for blending with petrol.
A sugar industry body last week said that a majority of sugar companies decided to make hand sanitisers to supply to hospitals and institutions by using a part of the ethanol/ENA production.
"Some of them are supplying the sanitisers at cost price or even free of cost. With the State Excise department and State Drug Controllers giving full cooperation, this new segment of production of hand sanitisers has been successfully launched very quickly by most of the sugar companies," said the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).
(With inputs from PTI)
Comments
0 comment