Ministries eye Rs 1,400 cr bio-diesel fund

Subsequently, the rural development ministry got a detailed project report (DPR) done by TERI. The estimates of the TERI report show that the corpus for the project would be to the tune of Rs 1,400 crore. The Planning Commission had in principle agreed to fund the project once it becomes part of the national mission on bio-diesel.

However, on May 11, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar called a meeting of the National Oil seeds and Vegetable Oils Development Board (NOVOD) on the issue of bio-diesel programme. This meeting got postponed due to a packed Cabinet schedule that Wednesday, as did a subsequent meeting on May 14.

Pawar had extended the invite of the meeting to a host of ministers including the rural development minister, petroleum minister, minister of non-conventional energy, minister for science and technology, finance minister and also the Planning Commission deputy chairman.

When contacted, rural development minister Dr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said, “If the agriculture ministry calls for a meeting, we will attend but the rural development ministry is the nodal ministry till date and the mission will be executed by the nodal ministry. We are waiting for the nod of the Planning Commission and the subsequent nod of the Cabinet”, he added.

According to sources in petroleum ministry, the ministry is rather vexed at the developments. “The fact that the two ministries are slugging it out on the project might delay the entire process”, a senior official in the petroleum ministry said.

In fact, on an experimental basis, oil marketing firms have tested the use of bio-diesel in diesel in transportation and the results have been found to be technically satisfactory. IOC and HPCL are experimenting with various mixes of bio-diesel with diesel in the state transport buses of Haryana, Gujarat and Mumbai.