National Bio-fuel Policy to be approved soon: Muttemwar

New Delhi, Aug 21 (UNI) Minister for New and Renewable Energy Vilas Muttemwar today announced that a comprehensive National Bio-fuel Policy was on the anvil, which entails a minimun support price for bio-fuel crops, subsidy for grower and ensures that fertile farmland would not be diverted for these crops.

The Policy has been approved by the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and would go before the Cabinet soon, Mr Muttemwar told reporters here.

National Bio-fuel Policy assures that bio-fuel programme would not compete with food security and fertile farm lands would not be diverted for plantation of bio-fuel crops.

The policy draft also deals with a number of issues like marketing of oil-bearing seeds, subsidies and fiscal concessions for the bio-fuel industry, research and development, mandatory blending of auto-fuel with bio-fuel, quality norms, testing and certification of bio-fuels.

The GoM was consisted of Villas Muttemar, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Communications and IT Minister A Raja.

UNI MP SBA HS1531