BIOFUEL: GREEN ACTIVIST FILES AFFIDAVIT

BIOFUEL: GREEN ACTIVIST FILES AFFIDAVIT
 
Green activist Subhas Dutta filed a counter-affidavit on Monday in the high court to the petroleum ministry's claim over the sole "responsibility of storage, distribution and marketing of bio-fuel has been assigned to the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs)". Dutta said that OMCs have not done anything to market the environment-friendly fuel.

"In Kolkata or in the rest of Bengal, there is hardly any bio-diesel purchase centre. Across the nation, there are only 20 purchase centres, which is nothing compared to the demand. So I have prayed to the court for a directive to the ministry of new and renewable energy and national coordination committee on bio-fuel to come before the court and declare a time-bound programme for its promotion and use," said Dutta.

The government has prepared a national policy on biofuel, which says that the bio-fuel reduces pollution. "Biodiesel is such eco-friendly alternative fuel and can be mixed with diesel up to 20 percent at the depot level. But the ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MPNG) has miserably failed to do the needful and that is why it is not available for the end users. We have prayed that the marketing of bio-fuel should not rest only in the hands of OMCs," Dutta said.

Considering the importance and urgency of this environment friendly fuel, National Bio-Fuel Coordination Committee, headed by the Prime Minister and seven other Ministers was set up to promote the manufacturing and use of biofuel.

"They just impose their whim on us by imposing a ban on the sale of the product we manufacture," said Aditya Agarwal, director of Emami Group, the biggest bio-diesel producer in the eastern India.
 ....from the Kolkata newspaper of The Times of India (Kolkata edition)