India on the Route to Become a Zero Petroleum Import Country

By - CEM Team

With the Indian government aggressively rolling out plans and building infrastructure for increased power generation capacity using renewable sources, use of increased alternate fuel resources is also on country’s top cards.

Indian government has recently announced their plans targeting to become an alternative fuel economy. Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister mentioned country’s plan to soon stop importing petroleum products, while promoting alternative fuel like ethanol, methanol, bio-CNG etc.

India’s spend on crude oil imports has reduced from INR 7.5 lakh crore to INR 4.5 lakh crore (globally low crude oil prices is to be considered too) . Country estimates an annual saving of INR 5 lakh crore by replacing petroleum with alternate fuel.

Today, India is one of the fastest growing economy and the encouraged use of alternative fuel is an attractive opportunity to foreign investors by encashing country’s agriculture, bamboo, surplus coal and power.

Minister mentioned that by taking this step, Indian government will be able to address two issues simultaneously i.e. manufacturing of alternative fuel using agricultural waste and improving socio –economic condition of agriculture and rural economy of the country. For Eg: Ethanol can be made from biomass i.e. cotton straw, wheat straw, rice straw, bagasse. Also, municipal waste can be used to make ethanol. Multiple developed countries are manufacturing alternative fuel in similar way such as Europe produces ethanol from biomass.

There lies immense investment opportunities for related industries as there will be need of science, technology, research, infrastructure development, industrial equipments and much more for end to end implementation of this plan.

India is an agriculturally rich economy with 75% of its GDP derived from agriculture. Different zones with a specific produce offer relevant raw materials for fuel production. Such as Haryana can provide abundant wheat straw while North East can be a source of bamboo.

Investors should certainly look at this industry as a promising business opportunity.  

Source: News