In the process of creating supply chain for Assam refinery: Fortum India's Sanjay Aggarwal

The joint-venture refinery with Numaligarh Refinery Limited is going on expected lines, Fortum India's Sanjay Aggarwal said in an interview with Devdiscourse.

Fortum India along with Numaligarh Refinery Limited is setting up a refinery to convert bamboo into ethanol in Assam's Numaligarh. The Rs 2,000 crore project is going on expected lines and the stakeholders are working on creating a robust supply chain, Fortum India's Managing Director Sanjay Aggarwal said to Devdiscourse in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of Waste Management Series of Summits (WMSS) 2020.

"We've started the construction of the plant (and) we are in the process of creating a supply chain meaning how to source bamboo. We hope to complete the project by 2021 and it is going on expected lines," Aggarwal said.

Talking about the refinery further, he said that, "the project would use around 500,000 tonnes of bamboo every year and it would be converted into around 62 million liters of ethanol." Click here to see the full interview:

During the interaction, Aggarwal also talked about Fortum's pilot project to convert paddy into fiber. "We started off with the conversion of bamboo to ethanol ... and we are already developing a pilot to convert paddy into fiber."

Fortum India’s under construction biorefinery in Assam is expected to provide direct benefit to over 10,000 bamboo farmers besides creating at least 50-60 local entrepreneurs in its supply chain management. Besides Ethanol and textile fibers, the company also plans to produce chemicals and cosmetics from byproducts. Thus besides creating wealth out of agriculture waste, the project would contribute to reducing carbon emissions and climate action which has been adopted as SDG 13 (Sustainable Development Goal) by the United Nations for the year 2030 (SDG 2030).

For more news and views on waste management, please visit Live Discourse on Waste Management Series of Summits (WMSS 2020) being organized by Indus Exposium on 30th - 31st January 2020 in New Delhi.