Kesla Gaon, Chhattisgarh: Every week, Sumit Sarkar and his sport utility vehicle cover 3,000km across Chhattisgarh in search of the perennial green bush, jatropha—the seeds of which might help guarantee the country’s future energy security.
But the “green gold”, as the dark berry-shaped seeds that are crushed to help produce biofuel are called, remain very difficult to find.
“We will be lucky if we get 2,000 tonnes of seeds this year,” says Sarkar, the 36-year-old regional manager of D1 Oils Plc., a biofuel firm listed on the London Stock Exchange.
D1 Oils, in which BP Plc. has recently picked up 50% equity, has set up a 21,000 tonnes-a- year biofuel plant in the western Tamil Nadu town of Coimbatore in a joint venture with Mohan Breweries & Distilleries Ltd.
D1 Oil is scouring for seeds in different parts of the country, including Chhattisgarh. The new partnership firm, D1 BP Fuel Crops Ltd, plans to spend Rs50 crore to set up eight more expellers, or oil extraction plants, in the state where the government’s much-hyped jatropha plantation drive was launched two years ago.
In a symbolic statement of Chhattisgarh’s support to promoting both the cultivation and use of alternative energy, chief minister Raman Singh’s official car runs on biofuel. But elsewhere, the hunt goes on for jatropha, locally known as bagaranda.
Last year, daily wage earner Santosh Yadav, who lives in Garka village in central Chhattisgarh, assisted in planting 4,000 saplings along a 2km stretch of the national highway known as Singanpur. Today, only half the saplings survive.
“We’ve heard these plants will give us petrol and diesel. But we can’t see it,” says Yadav, who earned an average Rs67 a day for the fortnight he worked through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
About 290 million saplings have been planted by separate government agencies across the state’s fallow land, covering roughly 1.6 million hectares (mha). Under NREGS, about Rs55 crore was spent to plant jatropha.
Of these, one-fourth was planted in 2005, in anticipation of the plants bearing fruit this season. But poor survival rates and diversion of seeds to cater to larger plantation efforts by the government left several companies scrambling.
While the government has announced a minimum support price of Rs6.50 a kg, market price has hit Rs30-50 a kg with growing demand.
Companies, such as D1 Oils and Reliance Life Sciences (Pvt.) Ltd, part of the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Group, are turning to women self-help groups and other networks to procure seeds .
Emami Group—which has set up a 100,000 tonnes biofuel plant in Haldia, West Bengal—was the first company to approach the state for contract farming three years ago, but has not heard from the government yet. According to a company official who did not want to be named, Emami now plans to import palm oil to make biofuel.