20% ethanol blended petrol in pumps soon

Hardeep Singh Puri, Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, on Monday said 20% ethanol blended petrol may be available at select petrol pumps in the country ahead of the April 2023 target.

The statement comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India has achieved 10% blending of ethanol in petrol around five months ahead of a November 2022 deadline.

“We have been able to achieve 10% blending of biofuel good five-six months before the target date and I think that’s the spirit with which we are approaching sustainability on all fronts,” said Puri, who also has the portfolio of housing and urban affairs.

Speaking at the ‘Leaders in Climate Change Management’ (LCCM) programme launched by National Institute of Urban Affairs and World Resources Institute India, the minister said in the initiatives of both the housing and petroleum ministries, there was “full emphasis on green sustainability... whether it is 10% ethanol blending already achieved or the target of 20% ethanol blending which was set for 2030, which we are going to do by 2025 or the fact that E20 petrol will start being available at our bunks on 1 April 2023 or even earlier.”

He said in the last eight years, the government has taken many concrete steps in pushing the sustainability agenda forward.

“At COP26 in Glasgow, the PM announced India’s aggressive agenda on climate change through the Panch Amrit action plan which envisages India becoming a net-zero emission country by 2070. The LCCM program launched today, seeks to not only identify hundreds of climate leaders but also focus on how these leaders can be oriented in terms of their training and how will they move forward. The very fact that we are thinking about this is a revolutionary step,”.

Announcing the ‘Panch Amrit’ action plan at COP26 in November last year, the prime minister also committed to achieve net zero carbon neutrality by 2070.

“The LCCM program launched today seeks to not only identify hundreds of climate leaders but also focus on how these leaders can be oriented in terms of their training and how will they move forward. The very fact that we are thinking about this is a revolutionary step,” he said.

LCCM is a practice-based learning programme aimed at building capacity among urban professionals to lead climate action across sectors and geographies in India.

O.P. Agarwal, CEO, WRI India, presenting the LCCM programme, said, “The key challenge in building capacity for mid-career professionals is using the right kind of pedagogy – a teaching style that encourages learning by doing, rather than by just listening to lectures. The LCCM has fully recognized this and adopted this kind of teaching style.”