Government to increase targets for the EBP programme

The government plans to increase the target for the ethanol-blended petrol (EBP) programme further to 20 per cent by 2030. This will be done to bring down the imports of petroleum products as well as to provide a cleaner fuel. At present, Indian OMCs are implementing the EBP programme with an annual target of 5 per cent blending with ethanol. This is expected to increase to 10 per cent by 2022. For the new ethanol supply year (beginning December 2018), the OMCs have indicated a requirement of 3.29 billion litres of ethanol. This is more than double that of 2017-18 and will result in a blending rate of 10 per cent.