The Road Minister, Nitin Gadkari, on Wednesday suggested it is possible to manufacture vehicles that could run entirely on ethanol. 

Reacting to the news, M Manickam, MD, Sakthi Sugars said vehicles are run on ethanol it can be extremely beneficial in terms of reducing pollution in metros.

Agreeing with Manickam, Gajanan Nabar, CEO & MD, Praj Industries said using local fuel like ethanol would be one more step towards making India self reliant, adding that Brazil for many years has been running buses and cars on ethanol. 

Manickam said right now the ethanol blend stands at 10 percent blend and if we can have vehicles that can go upto 85 percent it would be good but for pricing to be feasible, the government of India would have to link price of ethanol with minimum statutory price for cane. 

Supply of ethanol would not be a problem according to Manickam if sugarcane is directly converted into ethanol but then government has to make sure that whatever the cost of production based on fair and remunerative price (FRP) – if they are willing to pay that price.

Talking about Sugar Cess bill, Manickam said it would be passed on to consumer and so for the industry it will be revenue neutral. It is basically the government trying to balance its own balance sheet -- so whatever subsidy they want to give they want to take it back from the consumer, so our company will not be impacted, he adds.

According to Nabar, it is definitely possible to manufacture cars run entirely on ethanol but there would be a gestation period of around 1-2 years for getting vehicles up and running. However, people can right away start importing buses or engines, he said.

On the pricing front, the price mechanism has already beenset by the government, so he does not expect any change in that. Also the infrastructure required for this could be built in quickly, says Nabar. 

Ethanol fuel is (ethyl alcohol), the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. The first production car running entirely on ethanol was the Fiat 147, introduced in 1978 in Brazil by Fiat. Nowadays, cars are able to run using 100% ethanol fuel or a mix of Ethanol and gasoline (aka flex-fuel). It is commonly made from biomass such as corn or sugarcane. Ethanol fuel is widely used in Brazil and in the United States.