Meanwhile, a story gone wrong for Tamil Nadu’s Pillai

A high school dropout from a small village in Tamil Nadu set off ripples among the scientific community in 1996 when he claimed to have invented a wonder fuel, a herbal alternative to petrol.

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Ramar Pillai, a diminutive and self-proclaimed chemist, evoked excitement and scepticism in equal measure. Those who were impressed with the concoction he had demonstrated in several public forums, using rudimentary implements and a secret herb, described him as “India’s Newton” while several others dismissed it as hoax.

Hailing from a nondescript village near Rajapalayam in Tamil Nadu, Pillai shot to national fame with a magical remedy for fuel problem. During the demonstrations, he claimed to have converted water into petrol using some secret herbs and chemicals. The method was simple: Boil two ounces of special leaves and bark in a litre of water, cool, and add a small amount of salt, citric acid, and some unspecified chemicals . Half an hour later, you get about a pint of combustible liquid that floats to the top and smells and burns like kerosene.

The accolades kept pouring in for the desi inventor, so much so that the Tamil Nadu government provided free land to grow his wonder herbs and set up a factory and also sanctioned financial assistance for research. Though the Department of Science and Technology (DST) initially spoke approvingly of Pillai’s invention, the scientific community later retracted and dubbed him as dishonest and his experiments as unscientific.

The Petrol Man’s demonstration at the Indian Institute of Technology IIT), Madras, failed. His experiment was also rejected by the Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) at Dehradun. He was accused of clandestinely adding petrol from the stick he used to mix his herbal mixture.

Pillai’s luck ran out in March 2000 when CBI arrested him. The CBI case against him is that he has been cheating the public by selling stolen industrial chemicals as motor fuel. He was accused of fraud and making his fuel from a mixture of chemicals that could damage vehicles and using chemicals stolen from refineries too. The investigators had seized more than 10,000 litres of Ramar Herbal Fuel, containers of chemicals, additives and a large sum of cash. The CBI case is pending in the court while Pillai is out on bail. Nearly ten years after the CBI the case, he was back in the reckoning and addressed a press conference in Chennai on September 22, 2010. He claimed that he was planning to sell his alternative bio fuel at Rs.5 a litre. He even sought government’s help to make his plan a reality.

However, attempts by this correspondent to contact him went in vain. He did not respond to the written queries sent to him. A look at his facebook page reveals that his last post was way back in September 2010 wherein he talked about applying for a patent. It turns out that he has applied for a process patent but it is yet to be granted. He has only 8 friends on facebook.