<span style="color: #222222;">Government has taken various measures to improve the viability of the sugar industry and enabled sugar mills to make timely payment of cane dues of farmers. A meeting co-chaired by Secretaries of  Food and Public Distribution, Petroleum and Natural Gas and Department of Financial Services was held with the representatives of leading banks and Oil Marketing Companies, Cane Commissioners of major sugar producing States and sugar industry associations yesterday. The meeting discussed ways and means to increase supply of ethanol to OMCs to achieve the objective of increased blending percentage in petrol. It was assured by the states and industry that efforts would be made to increase supply of ethanol in the current as well as in ensuring ethanol supply years. Ethanol is a green fuel and its blending with petrol saves foreign exchange.<br />''<br />''During the last ethanol supply year 2018-19, about 189 crore litres of ethanol was supplied by sugar mills and grain based distilleries to OMCs achieving five percent blending target. In the current ethanol supply year, efforts are being made to supply 190 to 200 crore litres of ethanol for blending with petrol to achieve 5.6 percent blending. Government has set a 10 percent blending target for mixing ethanol with petrol by 2022 and a 20 percent blending target by 2030.</span><br />