THE Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals has urged the Petroleum Ministry to restrict its ethanol blending programme at 5% due to scarce production of ethanol and deficit in its availability for the chemical sector. According to official sources, chemical companies need ethanol as a basic chemical for various products and the pressure to move for 10% ethanol blending programme is causing major problem for businesses in the chemical sector. As per the government mandate, ethanol is considered a green fuel and its blending with petrol will help reduce India's heavy dependence on crude oil imports. But ethanol is also used by the chemical and alcohol industries and the prices of the fuel in these two sectors determine its cost to the oil marketing companies (OMCs). While blending at 5% has been made mandatory, now the government proposes to make it 10% that is with each litre of petrol, 10% of the composition should contain ethanol.
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