Punjab to Get its First Bioethanol Plant at Bathinda

Union food processing minister today laid the foundation stone of Punjab’s first second-generation Bioethanol plant at Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda district. Deputy CM Punjab S. Sukhbir Singh Badal and Minister of State, Petroleum & Natural Gas Sh. DharmendraPradhan also joined her. Built up at 49 acres of land, the 500 crore plant offers a practical solution to the problem of stubble burning by converting crop residue to Ethanol.

Union Minister of Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Deputy CM Punjab S. Sukhbir Singh Badal and Minister of State, Petroleum & Natural Gas Sh. Dharmendra Pradhan laying foundation stone of 2G Ethanol Bio Refinery at Bathinda

The state of the art bioethanol plant offers a long-term solution to farmer’s challenge of disposing off crop residue. Using an efficient technology, agriculture waste is converted into fuel grade ethanol, offering a permanent solution to the age-old practice of crop residue burning.

Union Minister of Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal addressing gathering during the foundation stone laying of 2G Ethanol Bio Refinery at Bathinda

Talking about the long-term benefits, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said, “The Ethanol plant besides addressing the environment issues, would also provide an additional income source to farmers. Around 3 lacs farmers will be benefitted with extra income of more than Rs 19.20 crore per annum (at an average biomass rate of Rs 1500 per tone)."

Sharing details of the ethanol plant, Harsimrast Badal said, “It would use 400 tonnes of agriculture residue per day or 1.28 lacstonnes of biomass as fuel and shall have a production capacity of around 100 KL per ethanol per day and around 3.20 crores liters of ethanol annually. This would be enough to meet 26 percent of the ethanol requirement of the State."

The project shall also yield 32000 MTPA of biofertilizers, which shall in turn be incorporated into soil for improving soil fertility raising overall farm productivity in the state. Apart from this the plant will also yield Bio-CNG, which can be used as clean cooking fuel and fuel in vehicles. The plant will be yielding 115.20 lacs kg of Bio CNG per annum.

The Bathinda MP said, “Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) was bringing this capital intensive project to the State. The second-generation ethanol bio refinery shall operate on DBT-ICT, an indigenous technology funded by the Department of Biotechnology."