The West Bengal government said it had received around 15 proposals for manufacturing biofuel, entailing an investment of Rs 2,666 crore. Chief Secretary Harikrishna Dwivedi made the announcement after attending a meeting with industrialists.
“The state is one of the biggest producers of rice in the country and that broken rice could be used for the manufacture of ethanol for mixing with petrol or diesel. Since ethanol is a green fuel, we are making it mandatory to blend ethanol with petrol and diesel. We have a huge amount of broken rice, we are expecting that we will be able to produce a huge amount of ethanol,” said the bureaucrat. He added, “We have already set up an ethanol production promotion policy and received 15 proposals to produce ethanol. The total investment involved is Rs 2,666 crore and we are expecting it will generate 4,000 direct employment.”
