India is on track to achieve the target of 20% ethanol blending in petrol by 2025-26

India has achieved the target of 10% ethanol blending in petrol five months ahead of schedule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Sunday.

Complimenting the people, farmers and oil companies of the country on this achievement, Prime Minister Modi pointed out that ethanol blending was at 1.5 percent in 2014.

Ten per cent ethanol blending had led to a reduction of 27 lakh tonnes of carbon emission, saved foreign exchange worth Rs 41,000 crore and helped farmers earn Rs 40,600 crores in the last eight years, he pointed out.

The Prime Minister was speaking at an event, 'Save Soil', organised by Isha Foundation to mark World Environment Day.

India is now on track to achieve the target of 20% blending by 2025-26, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas later said in a press release.

The central government has been promoting the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme to enhance India’s energy security, reduce import dependency on fuel, save foreign exchange, address environmental issues and give a boost to domestic agriculture sector.

The ‘National Policy on Biofuels’ notified by the Government in 2018 envisaged an indicative target of 20% ethanol blending in petrol by 2030.

However, considering the encouraging performance, due to various interventions made by the Government since 2014, the target of 20% ethanol blending was advanced from 2030 to 2025-26, the ministry pointed out.

A “Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020-25” was also released by Prime Minister Modi in June, 2021 which lays out a detailed pathway for achieving 20% ethanol blending. This roadmap also mentioned an intermediate milestone of 10% blending to be achieved by November, 2022.

"However, due to the coordinated efforts of the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) the target of 10% blending under the programme has been achieved much ahead of the targeted timelines of November, 2022 wherein the Public Sector OMCs have attained an average 10% ethanol blending in petrol across the country," the ministry said.
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