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KioskNews
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Thursday, October 15, 2026
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The Indian Express·India·

From ethanol to data centres: Can Praj Industries turn diversification into growth?

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Rahul Rao

India’s ethanol-blending push helped Praj Industries scale up rapidly, (Credit Praj.net)

17 min readOct 15, 2026 07:30 AM IST First published on: Oct 15, 2026 at 07:30 AM IST

In 2014, India blended about 1.5% ethanol into its petrol. In 2025, it blended 20%, five years ahead of the 2030 target the government had set.

Getting there took one of the fastest industrial build-outs in the country’s recent history. Sugar mills added distilleries. Grain-based plants came up across Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. By July 2026, India had nearly 2,000 crore litres of installed ethanol capacity spread across about 370 distilleries, with another 40 under development.

A large share of those distilleries run on technology designed by one Pune-based company. By industry estimates, Praj Industries has had roughly two-thirds of India’s ethanol plant market, and it has built more than 1,000 plants across 100-odd countries over four decades. When the blending programme took off, Praj’s revenue tripled, from Rs 1,102 crore in FY20 to Rs 3,528 crore in FY23.

Then the programme succeeded, and success turned out to be a problem.

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