The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Tuesday announced increases in the price of sugarcane-extracted ethanol, used for blending in petrol, in keeping with its stated policy of encouraging ethanol-blended fuel to cut the country’s oil import bill and aiding the sugar industry and farmers.

For the year starting December, price of ethanol derived from C heavy molasses has been increased from Rs 43.46 a litre to Rs 43.75 per litre, and for B heavy molasses to Rs 54.27 per litre from Rs 52.43 earlier. Also, the price of ethanol from sugarcane juice, sugar, sugar syrup route has been fixed at Rs 59.48 per litre.