New Delhi, Aug 23 (IANS) India will soon launch a special mission to promote cultivation of non-edible oilseed crops as well as other crops for production of bio-fuel, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here Wednesday.
"This mission would comprise 14 central ministries involved in the promotion of bio-fuels and state governments," Pawar told a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry.
The in-session meeting of the consultative committee focused on bio-fuels, seen as an answer to reduce dependence on hydrocarbon fuels.
Emphasising the need for making bio-fuel cultivation economically viable for farmers as an alternative crop, Pawar said the agriculture ministry has been playing an active role in promoting bio-fuels including constituting the National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oils Development (NOVOD) board to undertake research and popularisation of non-edible oilseeds like jatropha and karanja.
The NOVOD board has undertaken a countrywide network project for identification and development of elite planting material resulting in the planting on 10,000 hectares of land at different places in 21 states.
The board is also administering a back-ended credit linked subsidy scheme.
India's annual requirement of petroleum products is about 124 million metric tonnes. Of which around 72 percent is being met through imports at present, costing over Rs.1.5 trillion.
It has estimated that for five percent blending of bio-diesel with petrol or diesel, jatropha and karanja plantation would have to be raised on 2.5 million hectares of wastelands.
Research and development programmes on identification and seed resource assessment are being undertaken by national organisations like the National Network on Jatropha and Karanja comprising state agriculture universities and several premier institutions, Pawar informed.
The proposed national mission is to be implemented in two phases, Phase I as demonstration project and Phase II as a self-sustaining expansion of the bio-diesel programme.
With the rural development ministry as the nodal ministry, promotion of jatropha cultivation in forest and non-forest areas totalling 400,000 hectares, especially in wastelands, is proposed to be carried out over a period of five years.
So far Rs.490 million has been released to nine states namely Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan for raising jatropha seedlings in the nurseries, according to officials.