Credible data must fuel ethanol drive

ALCOHOL is at the centre of a major controversy these days. The government policy to aggressively push ethanol-blended petrol has come under severe public scrutiny in recent weeks, though the policy has been in force since 2022. The original target to achieve 20% ethanol blending was 2030, but it was advanced to 2025.

Many claims are being made about the benefits of this policy — from energy security and foreign exchange savings to farmers’ welfare. Yet vehicle owners are complaining of engine damage and a drop in mileage. In defence, the government says that the policy is evidence-based and backed by data, mostly citing unnamed and unpublished studies by industry associations.

There are no independent, peer-reviewed studies to back the claims about the effects of ethanol-blended fuel on vehicles. If the fuel efficiency of cars using ethanol-blended petrol is lower — as admitted by car manufacturers now — and engines are getting damaged — as vehicle owners are complaining — then it is going to add to the economic costs.

In addition, agriculture and food experts have warned that ethanol blending will affect food security as farmers shift from food crops to water-intensive sugarcane and ethanol companies use maize and rice as feedstock amid surging ethanol demand. The government needs to be clear about the policy goals and present convincing evidence about its benefits, instead of attributing motives to critics and dismissing public outrage about its negative impacts.

People often cite the example of Brazil, where ethanol blending was introduced in the 1970s. Its long-term effects are emerging only now. The policy was a direct result of overproduction of sugar and was introduced under the influence of sugar lobbies. Over the past five decades, it has led to a massive change in land use, accounting for huge greenhouse gas emissions due to deforestation in the Amazon forests to make room for fuel crops. In any case, the climatic and soil conditions in India are not the same as in Brazil to support large-scale energy plantations.

Like any new technology, green technologies — be it ethanol-blended petrol or electric vehicles — can have unintended adverse impacts when rolled out on a large scale. Just as the conduct of clinical trials before a new vaccine or medicine is introduced, all new technologies need to be field-tested under different conditions over a period of time, and the data should be made available to independent experts for review.

Transport is a vital sector of the economy, and any new technology to be introduced must be studied from various angles and discussed with all stakeholders, not just manufacturers.

It is rather shocking that the government summoned auto manufacturers to counter what car users are complaining about — a drop in mileage and damage to metallic and rubber parts of their vehicles. Auto manufacturers globally are known to fudge data, as exposed in the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal in the US. The automaker programmed diesel engines in its cars to compromise emission controls during testing to meet regulatory standards, as a result of which cars with 40 times higher emissions were passed off as those meeting pollution standards.

If indeed the ethanol policy is science-based, as claimed by the Petroleum Minister, the government must make public the findings of all the studies, if any, conducted to test fuel efficiency, long-term impact of blended fuel on various components and the engine, and data about testing on different types of vehicles under varied driving conditions.

In addition, we need scientific evidence about the greenness of ethanol-blended fuel based on the full environmental and carbon footprint of ethanol — from feedstock production to real-life use in cars. Then, we need a cost-benefit analysis of the use of blended fuel. This is critical because of concerns relating to a drop in mileage. If it is dropping even by 5% and car users are forced to buy more petrol, then the claims about economic benefits and foreign exchange savings also evaporate.

Similar arguments apply to the electric vehicles (EV) policy announced by the Delhi government. It targets two-wheelers and three-wheelers, fixing deadlines for ending registration of petrol-driven motorcycles and three-wheelers. The Chief Minister has claimed that the policy is science-based, relying on selective data to justify the drastic measure.

While it is true that two-wheelers account for 62% of the vehicle population in Delhi, they contribute only 15% of the transportation-related particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions. Light and heavy commercial vehicles account for 39% of transportation emissions, though they make up less than 3% of the city’s vehicle population, according to the 2025 policy brief published by Gufran Beig of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.

Going by this evidence, it seems that the biggest environmental and human health benefits would come by addressing emissions from commercial vehicles and buses. Public policies must have a graded system based on facts.

In December 2025, the parliamentary standing committee on environment, dealing with air pollution in Delhi, had warned against taking a fragmented policy approach and recommended that measures be undertaken at the airshed level instead of at the state level. In the absence of such an approach, the EV transition in Delhi could give sub-optimal environmental benefits if polluting vehicles from Delhi find their way into neighbouring states and continue to contribute to emissions in the shared airshed.

The exercise of public policymaking should be based on credible and relevant evidence and not on opinions, short-term gains, narrow political and business interests or ideology. The policy decisions should be transparent, unbiased and driven solely by the public good.

Policymakers could use existing evidence or conduct new research to back their arguments. As new evidence becomes available, policies need to be reviewed and updated, besides taking into account all interconnected issues. At stake is the health of the people, the environment and the economy.