LAHORE, Feb 26: Federal Industries Minister Shaukat Tareen has asked the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association to prepare a working paper on the use of bagasse for power generation and conversion of molasses into ethanol for use as automobile fuel.

This was disclosed by a PSMA spokesman in a statement issued here on Friday.

He said the minister had sought the proposal for utilizing the sugar industry byproducts as alternate fuel resource during a recent meeting with the association leadership under directions from President Pervez Musharraf. The working paper would be submitted to the economic coordination committee for further deliberations.

The minister, he said, had also taken up the ECC's decision to allow import of white and raw sugar and stressed the need for fixing the quantity and capping the import so that the country might not be turned into a sugar dumping ground by the international producers.

The minister promised to arrange a meeting between the PSMA and the Central Board of Revenue on serving of sales tax notices on sugar mills dealers when informed that the sugar sales were obstructed on account of the CBR action, he added.