CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 31 of 120

Correct — C, Sugar industry. India's fuel ethanol is overwhelmingly a sugarcane product. The NITI Aayog expert committee's roadmap for ethanol blending records that the Government 'has allowed ethanol production/procurement from sugarcane-based raw materials viz. C and B heavy molasses, sugarcane juice / sugar / sugar syrup', with surplus rice and maize added later, and it prices each of those feedstocks so that the farming community is supported. Every extra litre the oil marketing companies buy to lift the blend therefore has to come out of a sugar mill's distillery. That gives mills a second product to sell when the sugar market is glutted, and the money reaches them fast enough to clear the cane arrears they owe growers — which is the reason the Government pushed blending in the first place. India reached the 10 per cent blend in June 2022, roughly five months before the November 2022 deadline it had set itself, and that is the achievement the stem is pointing at.

• (a)Cassava plantations — Cassava is a serious ethanol feedstock in Thailand and Vietnam, not in India. It is not among the raw materials the Indian programme allows or prices, and India grows it mainly as a food and starch crop in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• (b)Maize farming — The best of the wrong answers, and it has aged into a near-miss. Grain-based ethanol was only beginning to be encouraged around the time of this exam — the roadmap of 2021 records newly approved interest-subvention incentives for grain distilleries — so the 10 per cent achievement of June 2022 rested on cane, not corn. Maize has since become a major feedstock as blending climbed towards 20 per cent, but that came after this paper.
• (d)Wine industry — Potable alcohol and fuel alcohol are different markets under different regulators, and diverting cane products into fuel ethanol competes with the potable trade rather than helping it. Nothing in the blending programme benefits winemakers.

The Ethanol Blended Petrol programme mixes anhydrous ethanol into petrol to cut oil imports, trim vehicle emissions and give the sugar sector a second market. The National Policy on Biofuels of 2018 set an indicative target of 20 per cent blending by 2030; the NITI Aayog expert committee's 'Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020-25', published in June 2021, pulled that forward to 2025 and mapped the distillery capacity, feedstock and vehicle changes needed to get there. The Department of Food and Public Distribution — a food ministry department, not a petroleum one, which tells you where the crop interest lies — is the nodal department for fuel-grade ethanol distilleries.

The question is a policy-logic item dressed as current affairs. Even without the June 2022 date, the reasoning runs: ethanol in India is distilled mainly from cane molasses and cane juice, so whoever owns the molasses gains. The numbers make the point concrete — a tonne of B-heavy molasses yields about 300 litres of ethanol and a tonne of C-heavy about 225, while a tonne of sugarcane routed as juice or syrup yields about 70. The chronic problem the policy addresses is that sugar mills, squeezed by surplus sugar and controlled prices, fall behind on paying growers, and ethanol sales to oil companies give them cash that flows back to the cane farmer. As of the present day the position has moved a long way: the 20 per cent target that the 2018 biofuels policy had set for 2030 was pulled forward to 2025 by the NITI Aayog roadmap, and grain-based ethanol from maize and surplus rice has grown from a pilot into a major part of the supply, which is why option (b) would be a much harder distractor if the same question were set today.

• India met the 10 per cent ethanol blending target in June 2022, about five months ahead of its November 2022 deadline.
• Fuel ethanol in India is allowed from C-heavy and B-heavy molasses, sugarcane juice, sugar and sugar syrup, damaged food grain, surplus rice with the Food Corporation of India, and maize.
• Yields per tonne of feedstock: about 300 litres from B-heavy molasses, about 225 from C-heavy molasses, about 70 from sugarcane routed as juice or syrup.
• The Department of Food and Public Distribution is the nodal department for promoting fuel-grade ethanol distilleries.
• The National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 set 20 per cent blending as an indicative target for 2030; the NITI Aayog roadmap of June 2021 advanced it to 2025.
• Average blending was only about 5 per cent in 2020-21, and barely half the petrol sold was even E10, which is the baseline the 2022 achievement should be read against.

• Assuming ethanol means grain alcohol as it does in the United States; in India the base is cane.
• Confusing fuel ethanol with potable alcohol, which is regulated separately and by the States.
• Reading a 2022 answer as still current — maize and surplus grain have since become major Indian feedstocks, and the 20 per cent target was moved forward from 2030 to 2025.

As a who-benefits item on the blending programme, or as a statements question on the by-products of the sugar industry and the biofuels policy targets.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Union department is the nodal department for the promotion of fuel-grade ethanol distilleries in India?

  • (a)Department of Food and Public Distribution
  • (b)Department of Fertilizers
  • (c)Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals
  • (d)Department of Agricultural Research and Education

  Answer(a) Department of Food and Public Distribution — the sugar sector's own department, which is why fuel ethanol policy is bound up with cane and sugar prices.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Among the following feedstocks permitted for fuel ethanol in India, which one yields the most ethanol per tonne of feedstock?

  • (a)Sugarcane routed as juice or syrup
  • (b)C-heavy molasses
  • (c)B-heavy molasses
  • (d)Bagasse

  Answer(c) B-heavy molasses — about 300 litres per tonne, against about 225 from C-heavy molasses and about 70 from a tonne of cane taken as juice or syrup.