Pitfalls Outweigh Potential

Government is pushing for biofuel production to reduce crude import bill. Can it steer clear of the food versus fuel dilemma?

- Purushottam Thakur

ON WORLD Biofuel Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fuelled a hope. “India can save 12,000 crore in foreign exchange in the next four years due to ethanol blending in petrol,” he said at a time when the country’s crude import bill has touched 8 lakh crore. Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has also been harping on the importance of alternative fuels. During a recent visit to Charoda in Chhattisgarh’s Durg district, he said the state has immense potential for biofuel, referring to India’s first biofuel-powered flight from Dehradun to Delhi on August 27 that used oil from jatropha (Jatropha curcas) seeds in Chhattisgarh.

While Gadkari has been lobbying for biofuel ever since he assumed office in 2014, his advocacy is seen with suspicion, given his long association with the sugar and ethanol industry. His latest hypothesis that Chhattisgarh could emerge as a biofuel hub echoes Chief Minister Raman Singh’s 2003 slogan, “Diesel nahin ab khadi se; diesel milega ab baadi se” (Diesel will no more be imported from the Gulf; it will be produced in the backyard). Years later, people realised it is not the “green gold” that it was made out to be. Singh’s claim that by 2014 the state will be self-sufficient in biofuel production never came true. “One million people were supposed to get employment. However, the plan for establishing biodiesel industry did not take off. We are still buying fuel at 85 per litre,” says Tulsiramji Sahu, former sarpanch of Seoni Khurd in Dhamtari district. Lokdhar Sahu, a resident of Bhothli village in Dhamtari district, where the government had planted jatropha on 20 ha, says plantations affected paddy crops as they cut off sunlight and did not let rice grow.

Layered challenges