| |MARCH 20219els be it rooftop power for home use or commercial level. Biofuels based power generation has failed despite gov-ernment incentive for obvious reasons such as distributed source of biomass and logistics related shortcomings.Industrials: India is witnessing a sea change in clean environment efforts from the industrial segment in the past decade. Except for the Cement and Steel, all other Industries have opted for biofuels replacing the traditional polluting fossil fuels. This drive has been a combination of cost savings for furnace oil users, better adherence to pol-lution for coal users and stricter implementation of pollu-tion norms defined by the Government. Biofuels are made from agri residue and are thus carbon neutral and produce almost nil greenhouse gases. Additionally, they augment farmers income and generate rural employment, thus con-tributing to CSR initiatives for a corporate. This clearly of-fers a win-win and is reflected in the growing popularity of biofuels. Agri residue (parali) burning is an ongoing prob-lem in the North India. Of the many ways to dispose this residue, the most viable and relatively easy to implement would be converting it into biofuels to be used in Industri-al boilers. Recent phenomenon is even more interesting as pellets ­ a refined form of solid biofuels is replacing diesel and LPG at small applications ranging from frying, roast-ing to plastic moulding. The cost benefit of using pellets is to the tune of 50%. Increased reforms to lead in acceleration of growth in clean energyFor greater ethanol usage, India should allow ethanol making directly from Sugarcane - like Brazil. The bio CNG needs more participation and resource allocation from pri-vate players for research & development.As we have seen above, most user segments have ad-opted clean energy in various forms, the drive needs to be stronger and Government must play the role of an enabler. To accelerate the adoption of clean energy, the most bene-ficial and socially advantageous way would be promoting the use of biofuels replacing fossil fuels. Apart from stricter implementation of pollution norms and restriction on use of polluting fuels such Furnace oil, raw wood, the Govern-ment also need to support the biofuels supply side. Biofu-els manufacturing is deeply attached to the rural economy and any support directly leads to its strengthening. This can be directly achieved by promoting entrepreneurship in biofuels by way of capital subsidy and many other ways such as procedural relaxations to set up manufacturing. A bold step can be waiving off GST on biofuels to make it lu-crative alternative to coal.We strongly believe that with proliferation of bio-fuels, most industrial areas would emit lower SOx, NOx and thus definitely improve the quality of air we breathe in nearby cities. We at Biofuels Junction are crusad-ers of use of biofuels and work towards as partners in greener tomorrow. To accelerate the adoption of clean energy, the most beneficial and socially advantageous way would be promoting the use of biofuels replacing fossil fuelsAshvin Patil, Director
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