Petroleum Ministry is to ensure that ethanol production is brought under the priority sector lending norm by banks.

1. This would encourage sugar mills to invest in adding distillery capacity & ensure that they could take loans for this at 2-3% less than the existing market rates.
2. Centre has planned to augment ethanol storage facilities, so that sugar mills could raise output without worrying about storage and transportation.
3. Ministry has sought an assurance from the mills that they’d produce enough ethanol to achieve a full 5% blending with petrol.
4. Government rules mandate 5% ethanol blending with petrol for more than a decade but the target has never been met, due to disagreement over the price OMCs would pay to millers.
5. Production of ethanol from sugar distilleries is the second biggest pollutant of the Ganga river.