Even as there is a significant improvement from last year in terms of the quantity of ethanol purchased by oil marketing companies, the government’s target of 5 per cent blending is not likely to be achieved this season. The government has set a target for 5 per cent blending of ethanol with petrol initially and will raise to 10 per cent subsequently. To achieve the target, the oil marketing companies such as Indian Oil, HPCL and BPCL need to buy 133 crore litres of ethanol. It is expected that the public sector OMCs will be able to blend 110 crore litres of ethanol in this supply year (December-November) which is an all-time record, the petroleum ministry said in a statement. The OMCs have already procured 100 crore litres of ethanol as of October 24. In 2014-15, the PSUs had purchased 67.4 crore litres of ethanol after the government prodded them to buy the biofuel and achieve the target. The government has also taken a number of steps including fixing the delivered price of ethanol at depots, simplifying the procurement procedures and regularly taking up specific issues with the states. The EBP programme was first started during the Vajpayee-led NDA government in 2002 when it launched 5 per cent mixing with petrol in 9 states and 4 union territories. However, the UPA discontinued it in 2004 due to lower sugarcane production. Finally, when it re-launched the programme in 2007, the actual procurement by oil marketing companies started only in November 2012 and the same year a national biofuel plan was unveiled targeting 20 per cent blending across the country. The EBP programme has been designed to reduce import dependency for energy requirements as well as develop cleaner environment. Between 2006 and 2013, only about 20 crore litres per year could be blended and it went up to 38 crore litres during 2013-14. The government has lso allowed ethanol production from other sources like corn, barley, damaged rice, etc. to augment availability. As much as 156 units are producing molasses based ethanol with the installed capacity of about 224 crore litres annually.