India, Jan. 29 -- Cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra have urged the government to provide financial assistance for converting their distilleries into multi-feed facilities, enabling them to use maize and other grains for ethanol production beyond the sugarcane crushing season.

Most cooperative ethanol projects are sugarcane-based, limiting production to the crushing season. However, states with multi-feed distilleries are producing ethanol year-round using alternative grains.

To address this challenge, officials and experts from the cooperative sector across the country convened for a brainstorming session in Pune last week. The meeting, chaired by Harshvardhan Patil, president of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factori...