Cabinet may clear biofuel policy today

NEW DELHI: The long-awaited national biofuel policy could finally see the light of the day with the Cabinet set to discuss it on Thursday. The policy intends to set up a National Bio-Fuel Coordination Committee, headed by the PM, which would give the impetus to an issue hanging fire for more than a year now.

While a draft policy had been under discussion with a group of ministers headed by Sharad Pawar, the progress on finalizing it had come to a grinding halt with turf battles raging between crucial ministries at first and then a global and heated debate about the impacts of diversion of food crops and land to biofuel production.

But sources told that the finalized policy was explicit in recommending that biofuels would be grown only on wastelands. As critically, staving off the criticism that countries like US has faced, the policy has pushed for use of only non-edible varieties of plants. The policy also intends to keep the domestic biofuel market isolated from the vagaries of international market by not recommending export. With a huge domestic demand, the policy proposes to first build an adequate supply for the local markets and as a result build capacities. Sources said need for a coordination committee, headed by the PM, instead of a 'board' was thought important as once policy is in place, an empowered agency would be able to push almost half a dozen ministries and private sector in a unified manner.