NEW DELHI: India expects to meet its target of blending 5 per cent ethanol in all gasoline sold this sugar year for the first time, the oil minister said, as supply improves and the government pushes the use of the cleaner-burning biofuel to check pollution. 
 

Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Indian oil refiners would be supplied 1.2 billion litres of ethanol in the current sugar year that began on Oct. 1. In India ethanol is mainly derived from molasses - the thick syrup produced by boiling down sugarcane juice in sugar refining. 

Last month, the government said India had doubled its target of blending ethanol with gasoline to 10 per cent.