Used cooking oil to be collected and converted into biodiesel-Pannu
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
In order to prevent the misuse of the unsafe, used cooking oil (UCO) in the State, it will be collected from restaurants, hotels and other food establishments and converted into biodiesel, informed KS Pannu Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration Punjab.
He informed that when the cooking oil is used more than twice or thrice for frying, then the Trans Fats are produced to a detrimental level, which are unsafe for human health. So, as per the directions of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), under the Repurpose Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) campaign, collection and conversion of used cooking oil (UCO) into biofuel has been initiated.
Pannu informed that Northern Biofuels Private Ltd., Mohali has been authorised for UCO collection on the condition that the collected used cooking oil will only be used for the production of biodiesel. Besides, the price of used cooking oil will be fixed by mutual agreement with the respective entities. The Company has been directed to give a monthly statement to the Commissionerate detailing the oil collected from each district, informed Pannu.
Recently State-run oil marketing companies Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan launched a programme to procure biodiesel made from used cooking oil in 100 cities across the country.The programme was formally launched by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister,under which the three OMCs invited expression of interest from private entities for setting up plants to produce biodiesel from used cooking oil.The minister also launched Repurpose Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) sticker and a mobile phone application for collection of used cooking oil (UCO) to ensure that it does not come back to ecosystem.
As per data,in India, 2,700 crore litres of cooking oil is used, out which 140 crore UCO can be collected from bulk consumer such as hotels, restaurants and canteens for conversion, which will give around 110 crore litres of biodiesel every year.
