Indian oil companies waiting for guidelines to start using grain-based ethanol

In India, the Hindu Businessline newspaper reports oil marketing companies are awaiting guidelines from the government about how to go about introducing ethanol produced from surplus grains. The national biofuels policy foresaw the use of surplus grains as feedstock to help reduce its reliance on sugarcane but the decision to implement that part of the policy has drawn fire from the opposition. In this instance, the plan is to use surplus rice as feedstock. The rice has spent several years in storage and is no longer fit for human consumption.