The Chalthan Cooperative Sugar Factory, one of the big cooperative sugar factories of south Gujarat located about 18 kms east of Surat, has commissioned its 30,000 litres per day ethanol plant.
This is the maiden ethanol plant in Gujarat. To cash in on the new policy initiatives announced by the Centre, eight other sugar factories of the region have also chalked out plans to set up such ethanol plants.
Ethanol is prepared from molasses and alcohol, which are by-products procured during the sugarcane crushing for the manufacture of sugar.
The commencement of the plant gains importance in view of the fact that the Centre has recently given permission for mixing of 5 per cent ethanol in vehicular fuels.
Green signal has been given for setting up of such ethanol plants in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
At present, the total ethanol production in the country stands at 150 million litres from 14 plants. The total requirement of ethanol to mix it up with fuels will be 350 million litres. The total requirement of Gujarat state alone stands at 351 lakh litres of ethanol.
The Chalthan Sugar Factory has set up the ethanol plant using the technology of Delta T, while the plant has been set up by Praj Industries of Pune.
