IT WAS a big win, at least for now, for the powerful Maharashtra sugar lobby when the three ministers from the state on the ethanol GoM clinched the contentious price of Rs 27/litre for ethanol at the CCEA on Monday.

Under intense lobbying from ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Murli Deora and Sharad Pawar, the price of ethanol, although only an interim one at present, was pegged at the CCEA at