Bio Fuels – Karnataka Initiatives
and opportunities
Ramakrishna Y B
Chairman
Task force on Bio fuels
Government Secretariat
6, 1st floor, M S Buildings
Vidhana veedhi, Bangalore 560 001
Karnataka
The Task force

High power committee set up in Sep 2008
 Principal Secretaries of Forest, Energy,
Transport, Agriculture, RDPR, Watershed
commissioner and PCCF as convener.
 Well balanced civilian team. Prof’s from
IISC, Agri Universities, NGO’s and Industry
with at least 8-10 years Bio fuel work to their
credit.
 Aim – To help state adopt a bio fuel Policy
and come up with a robust and sustainable
program and create a enabling atmosphere
across the state
The Bio Fuel policy
The Policy initiative was taken up as early
as in 2002 in Karnataka. 600 individuals and
institutions across the country involved
 The draft policy document submitted to
Govt. of India and Planning commission.
 An elaborate consultative and inclusive
exercise involving farmers, panchayats,
NGO’s and various stake holders between
2002-2008
 State adopts policy in Mar 2009.
 The Task force is now being converted into
Karnataka bio fuel development with Chief
Minister as the chairman of the governing
council.

The Bio Fuel Policy Highlights
 Multiple feed stock – TBO’s such as Pongamia,
Neem, Mahua, Simarouba, Jatropha,
Callophyulum Innophylum, Vetteria Indica and
others
 Ethanol from excess Sugar Molasses
 No diversion of agricultural land for plantation
nor use of food grains as bio fuels
 Plantation on degraded forest , revenue,
institutional land by involving communities
organised as VFC’s, tank user groups, SHG’s and
NGO’s
 Promote bund, fence planting on farmers land.
The Bio Fuel Policy Highlights

Promote short gestation crops such as
castor, Hemp as second/ inter crop by
farmers .
 Establish a sustainable and robust seed
collection network on co-operative principle
 Promote and develop technologies for
decentralised value addition and usage
 Initiate research to develop package of
practices, pest and disease management,
increase productivity
 Initiate research on second generation bio
fuels such as sweet sorghum, algae, MSW
etc
Bio Ethanol
 Karnataka has 54 sugar factories. 3rd largest sugar
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producer in the country
Six sugar factories have Ethanol production capacity
of 135 million litres /annum
We only need 35 million litres for 5% blending
Several experiments on Sweet Sorghum, Beet sugar
and cashew apple as feed stock
Several research initiated on ligno cellulosic Ethanol
from agri. Wastes as well as forest litter.
The Bio Fuel initiatives in 2009/2010
Baradu Bangara (Waste to Gold)
 Plantation in 6000 Ha.(24 lakh samplings)
of degraded forest land completed .
 25,000 hectares of degraded land identified
and plantation in progress in 2010. 15 million
seedling being raised across the state.
 100,000 hectares of degraded forest and
other government land (60million seedlings)
will be brought under cultivation of bio fuels
by 2012.
All plantation activities will be undertaken
with total involvement of Village forest
committees, Tank user groups and watershed
committees with usufruct rights defined.
The Bio Fuel initiatives in 2009/2010
Hasiru Honnu (Green Gold)
300,000 Pongamia seedlings planted on
bunds of farmers land under MGNREGA.
3200 beneficiaries in 78 villages were paid 75
lakh rupees for planting bio fuel species in
2009
 Hasiru Honnu is being extended to entire
state from 2010 onwards. 15 million seedlings
raised across the state for 2010 plantation.
 30 lakh grafts of pongamia being raised
 The demand survey across the state
indicates we may end up planting nearly 30 –
40 million bio fuel seedlings along the bunds
and hedges of farmers land in 2010.

Other initiatives
Bio Fuel Park in Hassan district – As model
for the State/country. 350 farmers cooperative functional covering 2000 villages.
100 villages declared total Bio Fuel villages
 Low cost oil extraction and esterification
units developed and field tested.
 Eight Information/Demonstration centres
operationalised in the state.
 Several Institutions initiated into bio fuel
research and development of technologies
 Bio Fuel Technology park at Gulbarga
University and Bijapur women’s university set
up
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Other initiatives
 KSRTC experiments in usage of Ethanol
and Bio diesel. Use of Enerdiesel in 2200
buses is a unique experiment in the world
 Mother tree identification on massive scale
and clonal orchards developed by forest
research wing and agricultural universities
Workshops on Research opportunities and
Business opportunities organised for
educational institutions and potential
entrepreneurs
Seed collection network
 SHG’s and farmers can sell seeds to 746 Raita
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samparka Kendras (RSK) one located at each hobli
(block) at minimum support price. RSK to function as
information center.
The seeds from RSK will be transferred to 30 demo
centres in each district located in every district.
These centres will have the facility to extract oil and
produce bio diesel.
The oil or the excess seed will be sold/auctioned to
private bio diesel producers.
The cake will be sold back to farmers through the
RSK network
Rupees 10 crores set aside by state for implementing
this.
Initiatives on forward linkages

350 farmers co-operative formed in Hassan
district for seed collection. They collected over
130 tonnes of seeds in 2010
 Farmers in Doddaballpur collected 270 tonnes
of seeds in 2010
 1000 Farmers from Mysore, Mandya,
Chamarajanagar districts are setting up 1 tonne
per day bio diesel plant.
 Bharat Petroleum to set up country’s first Green
fuel outlet near bio fuel park Hassan
Indian railways to set up 20 tonne per day plant
at Bangalore
Two more plants of 2 and 5 tonne per day is
under construction
The Bio Fuel initiatives in 2009/2010
Awareness and Capacity building exercises
 Series of workshops organised for forest
guards, foresters, and other officials of
forest/agriculture/ watershed departments.
 Series of workshops organised for 450
NGO’s, VFC’s, SHG’s and VP members.
 900 individuals trained in grafting
techniques in 2009-10. 3000 more being
trained in 2010.
 Identification of resource persons at district
level and trainers trainings organised.
Road map
8 more information and demo center to be
set up by February 2011 and 14 more in all
other district by end 2011
 Setting up of 10 clonal orchards in the state
 Operationalising GPS enabled plantation
monitoring system.
 Setting up of decentralised power
generation centres.
 Setting up and operationalising the seed
collection network
 Setting up of District level Bio fuel
committees for planning, implementing and
monitoring various bio fuel activities
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Thank You
The Bio Fuel targets for 2010

25000 Ha. Of degraded forest land to be
brought under bio fuel plantation under
“Baradu Bangara”.
 “Hasiru Honnu” to be extended to all 29
districts of Karnataka. 1.5 crore saplings
along the bunds on farmers land to be
planted.
 Constitute district level bio fuel
implementation and monitoring teams.
 Massive public awareness program to be
launched
 Extra emphasis on capacity building
exercises.