Buxar: Fear and uncertainty have gripped hundreds of workers with the chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) of Bharat Plus Ethanol Plant, Ajay Singh, confirming on Tuesday that the unit will be closed from Wednesday. Families of at least 700 workers dependent on the unit in Nawanagar, Buxar, now stare at the prospect of job loss and renewed migration.“I lived in Gujarat for nearly 20 years. I was happy when I got a job in Bihar. How will my family survive now?” asked Pradeep Singh, an employee of the plant.
He said if the unit shuts down, he would be forced to return to Gujarat or Mumbai in search of work and face harassment from locals. “How long will the CMD keep paying us when the plant is shut?” he added.Built at a cost of Rs 200 crore in the Nawanagar industrial area of Buxar district, the plant is hit due to reduced ethanol lifting by oil companies. The crisis has emerged following the govt’s new ethanol tender policy. “Orders for ethanol have dropped sharply, forcing the plant to operate at just 50% capacity. With storage tanks expected to fill up within two days, a shutdown is unavoidable,” the CMD added. If the plant closes, around 700 workers and employees will be directly affected, while nearly 2,000 people, including farmers and transport workers, depend on the plant for their livelihood.Sujit Kumar Singh, a resident of Ara, said he earlier worked in Madhya Pradesh. “When this plant started in Bihar, I was happy to get a job near home. I could spend time with my family. Now, due to wrong policies, this job may end, and I will have to go outside again,” he said. Workers have demanded that the govt ensure full lifting of the plant’s ethanol production so they can continue working in Bihar.According to Kunal Kishore, secretary of the Bihar Ethanol Association, oil companies are the only buyers of ethanol in the country — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. He said ethanol is procured either from plants with long-term offtake agreements or from other plants if demand cannot be met. “Earlier, it was assured that plants with agreements would get priority if there was additional demand. That assurance now appears to have been violated,” he said.“Bihar’s ethanol plants are facing an existential crisis. Despite creating capacity at the state and Centre’s call, several dedicated plants are today being pushed towards shutdown due to inadequate offtake orders from OMCs. This not only threatens thousands of jobs and local agricultural linkages but also severely damages investor confidence in Bihar’s industrial ecosystem. Capital has been locked into single-product ethanol facilities with no alternate revenue streams. Importantly, the Karnataka High Court has clearly upheld preferential allocation for dedicated ethanol plants under long-term offtake agreements. This order must be implemented immediately by OMCs, and relief granted to all DEP units across India, including Bihar, to restore trust and policy credibility,” Kishore added.Plant production manager Pankaj Singh said the issue is linked to the 2025-26 ethanol tender. “Our plant has a 10-year long-term offtake agreement. But in the new tender, dedicated ethanol plants have been placed third in priority. Cooperative sugar mills have been given first priority,” he said.He added that without regular lifting of ethanol, wages could not be paid. “We can pay workers only when our product is sold,” he said. The plant, located about 40 km from Buxar headquarters, was built on 20 acres of land of BIADA, completed in 2024 and inaugurated by CM Nitish Kumar on March 15, 2024.When contacted, Anurag Saraogi, executive director of Bharat Petroleum, declined to comment.Mrinal Singh, an official in the industry office of Buxar, said the matter was high-level and sensitive in nature and that he could not say anything.The plant produces 100 KLPD of grain-based ethanol and procures spoiled rice, rice bran, paddy husk and maize from farmers, requiring around 250 tonnes of rice husk daily. On Dec 8, during the CM’s inspection, CMD Singh and workers had submitted a memorandum seeking support.
