India to divert land from paddy to maize to boost ethanol production, optimise water usage

While Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja expressed the need to have a more targeted and region-specific approach to promote the cultivation of maize, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said that an increase in maize cultivation will need a collaborative ecosystem, similar to the one present for ethanol, including a price assurance for the next few years to increase maize production from the 34 MT to 42 MT.

In India, distilleries generally produce ethanol from molasses which is a by-product of sugar. As sugarcane isn't sufficient to achieve the 20 percent blending target, ethanol from food grains like maize, damaged food grains (DFG) and rice available with FCI have also been allowed.

To achieve the target of 20 percent ethanol blending with petrol by 2025, about 1,016 crore litres of ethanol would be required and about 334 crore litres of ethanol would be required for other uses. For this, about 1700 crore litres of ethanol-producing capacity would be required, considering plant operations at 80 percent efficiency.