Call to Raise Price of Sugarcane-Based Ethanol

27-Sep-2025 12:08 PM

Mumbai. While the central government has increased the selling price of ethanol produced from rice supplied by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) by approximately 3 percent, it has kept the price of ethanol produced from sugarcane unchanged, leaving it unchanged. This has displeased the sugar industry. In any case, more ethanol is now being produced from grains than from sugarcane.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) purchase ethanol for blending with petrol. For the 2025-26 marketing season, tenders have been invited for the supply of 1,050 crore liters of ethanol to these companies. Supply will begin in November 2025 and continue until October 2026.

The selling price of ethanol produced from Food Corporation of India's rice has been increased by approximately 3 percent from ₹58.50 per liter for the 2024-25 season to ₹60.32 per liter for the 2025-26 season.

The reason being that the reserve price of Food Corporation of India's rice has been increased from ₹22.50 per kg to ₹23.20 per kg, which will increase input costs.

The sugar industry states that the government has increased the fair and remunerative price of sugarcane, but has not increased either the ex-factory minimum selling price of sugar or the price of ethanol produced from sugarcane. Ethanol is produced from sugarcane juice, sugar syrup, and B-heavy molasses, which are sugarcane products.

The industry has requested an increase in the price of this ethanol to provide some relief to distillers. This time, 100 crore litres of ethanol is to be supplied in November, 200 crore litres in December-January, 280 crore litres in February-April and 250 crore litres in May-July.