Sugar mills in the country earned a revenue of around ₹35,000 crore by selling ethanol to the oil marketing companies in the country in the last four sugar seasons. 

This was informed by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

In a written reply, the minister said that around ₹35,000 crore of revenue has been generated by sugar mills from sale of ethanol to OMCs in the past four sugar seasons of 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. 

The government is encouraging sugar mills to export surplus sugar and to divert surplus sugarcane/sugar to ethanol with a view to liquidate surplus stock available with them, thereby improving liquidity of sugar mills enabling them to make timely payment of cane dues of farmers, she said. ln the sugar season 2020-21, around 22 lakh tonnes of sugar has been diverted to ethanol.