One of the three 20,000 litre per day bio-diesel plants the Indian Railways are planning to set up, is likely to be located at Yelahanka, near Bangalore, and may become functional by the middle of next year.
Indian Railways and Emami Ltd, manufacturers of personnel care products, are looking at Karnataka to meet their bio-diesel requirements.
It has been reported that the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) would expand bio-diesel coverage to all its 18,000 fleet of buses by next year. Proceeding on a pioneering and aggressive path in using bio-diesel, KSRTC has been using ethanol blended bio-fuel since 2002 and was presently using it in 5,500 buses at 7.7 per cent blend.
Indian Railways, the biggest consumer of diesel in the world, proposed three bio-diesel plants of capacity 20,000 litres a day at three centres, for blending diesel with biofuel.
Setting itself on a big expansion mode, Emami was looking at Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for Rs 300 crore investment, aiming at 1,500 litres of edible and 300 litres of bio-diesel oil per day.
