E20 transition: India’s ethanol blending programme is worth defending — not because it is perfect, but because it is practical

In a country that imports most of its crude, faces recurring global oil shocks, and is trying to clean up transport emissions without disrupting millions of motorists, ethanol is not a silver bullet. It is a bridge: imperfect, necessary, and increasingly important.

The current debate has become noisy, emotional, and in some cases politically convenient. Motorists are right to complain about mileage, about the lack of choice, and about the feeling that a major fuel transition has been imposed on them faster than the market has adapted. But those valid concerns should not obscure the larger point: ethanol blending helps India reduce its exposure to imported oil, and that matters every time geopolitics sends crude prices upward.

That argument has become even stronger after the recent uncertainty in West Asia, including the tensions that affected the Strait of Hormuz. India's dependence on imported crude means that any disruption there can feed directly into domestic fuel prices. Without ethanol blending, the retail petrol price would likely have been significantly higher, painful even. In that sense, ethanol is not just a policy choice; it is a hedge against the volatility of the global oil market.

For Indian motorists, that is the core of the case. Fuel is not merely a commodity in India. It is a daily cost, a budget line, and for many households, a source of financial stress. Any mechanism that softens crude shocks deserves serious credit. Ethanol blending does exactly that by replacing a portion of imported petrol with a domestically produced fuel. It does not eliminate dependence on crude, but it does dilute it. That is a meaningful gain in a country as exposed as India.

The other important question is whether ethanol makes sense from an agricultural and industrial point of view. Here too, the answer is yes, particularly  if the policy is executed with balance which I believe it is.

India today is food-grain surplus, not food-grain scarce like we were in the 1960s, the green revolution, modern farming techniques as well as the next generation of seeds has transformed Indian farming. After meeting public distribution requirements and buffer stock needs, the country still has significant volumes of grain that can be monetised in more productive ways. If that surplus can be converted into fuel, then it ceases to be a burden on storage and becomes a source of value. One also has to be keep in mind, that because of MSP promises to farmers, Indian grain is often not competitive in global markets.

This is where the use of rice, broken grain, and maize becomes strategically important. There is nothing inherently wrong with using surplus food grain for ethanol if food security is protected first. In fact, a well-managed ethanol economy can become a tool for agricultural price support, especially when it creates an additional, reliable buyer for farm output. That can be a lifeline in years of glut, when price collapses are as damaging to farmers as droughts are.

Maize deserves special mention because it offers a better balance between fuel production and resource use. Compared with water-intensive crops such as sugarcane, maize is far less demanding on water resources. That matters greatly in India, where groundwater stress is a chronic problem and agriculture is under pressure to do more with less. A stronger maize-for-ethanol ecosystem can support crop diversification, reduce dependence on water-heavy feedstocks, and create a healthier market for farmers who need predictable demand.

That is why the rise in maize-based ethanol should be seen as a positive development, not a compromise. And it has led to a material change for maize farmers in Bihar and Odisha who have seen incomes triple. It also broadens the raw material base for India's ethanol programme so that the entire system is not excessively dependent on sugar or rice. In policy terms, diversification is strength. In agricultural terms, it is resilience.

The next stage of the ethanol story is even more important: second-generation ethanol. This is where the real long-term sustainability case begins. Technologies that convert municipal waste, agricultural residue, bamboo, and even seaweed into ethanol are important because they reduce the food-versus-fuel tension that always shadows first-generation biofuels. Instead of drawing from edible grain alone, 2G ethanol uses biomass that would otherwise be wasted, burned, or left underutilised.

Bamboo and seaweed may sound futuristic, but they are precisely the kinds of feedstocks that can make India's biofuel ecosystem more durable over time. They widen the resource base, reduce pressure on farmland, and give the country more ways to produce liquid fuel domestically. If first-generation ethanol is the bridge, then 2G ethanol is the road that bridge leads to.

Still, the criticism of ethanol blending cannot simply be waved away. The mileage issue is real, even if it is often exaggerated. Ethanol contains less energy than petrol, so a reduction in fuel efficiency is expected. But the size of that drop is generally modest, and in real-world Indian driving conditions, mileage is already influenced by traffic, idling, road quality, driving style, weather, and vehicle maintenance. A neat laboratory number often tells only part of the story.

That matters because Indian motorists do not drive in perfect conditions. They drive in traffic-heavy, stop-start, highly variable environments. A small efficiency change at the fuel level can get lost in the larger noise of daily usage.

That is why the debate should be more honest. Ethanol does not magically improve mileage, but the downside is often smaller in practice than the outrage suggests.

There is also a simple economic argument. If lower ethanol blends such as E10 were more widely available, the fuel would likely remain competitively attractive even after accounting for a mild efficiency penalty. In other words, the cost advantage of a cheaper domestic blend can outweigh the mileage loss. That is especially true when crude prices are high and when India's tax and import exposure make petrol vulnerable to external shocks. The consumer does not necessarily lose in the arithmetic; often, the larger saving is in price stability rather than pure kilometres per litre.

This is why it is misleading to treat ethanol as though it must outperform petrol on every metric to justify its existence. No fuel is perfect. Petrol is imported and geopolitically vulnerable. Diesel is pollution-intensive, particularly for  nitrogen oxides and particulates. Electricity is cleaner but still uneven in terms of charging access, battery cost, and grid integration.

And that is not factoring in the dependence on Chinese imports for EVs, something that was brutally demonstrated last year when China stopped exports of neodymium rare-earth permanent magnets used on EV motors. Hydrogen remains promising, but despite a decade of progress, green hydrogen still has not been produced at the scale and cost needed to become a mass transport fuel. The reality is that every option has trade-offs.

India's challenge is more complex than most countries because it must balance energy security, affordability, emissions reduction, and vehicle fleet realities all at once. That is why the current outrage around ethanol blending can feel misplaced. The question is not whether ethanol is flawless. It is whether India can afford not to use a domestic fuel buffer in a world where oil is volatile and expensive. On that count, the answer is no.

What India should do now is not abandon ethanol blending, but refine it. Keep strengthening supply chains. Expand feedstock diversity. Give motorists clearer information about fuel compatibility. Preserve choice, including E0 options where viable, and E0 100-Octane fuels such as XP100 from IndianOil are available in major metropolitan areas. Accelerate 2G technologies so that the programme becomes more sustainable over time. And above all, communicate the basic truth: ethanol is not an ideological project, it is a strategic one.

In the end, the case for ethanol blending is a case for realism. India has no perfect fuel, no perfect transition path, and no perfect insulation from global shocks. But it does have biomass, surplus grain, agricultural capacity, and a large existing vehicle fleet. That is enough to make ethanol a sensible part of the answer.

Ethanol is not just a fuel policy, it is national strategy.

The writer is Director and the Printer & Publisher of The Pioneer; Views presented are personal.