Industry Odisha Bureu, May 20: Buckled under the mounting pressure of crude oil import price volatility along with the catapulting crude oil trade deficit status of the country’s economy due to the ongoing geopolitical shock and upheaval in the West Asia region, Government of India (GoI) has reportedly pulled up its socks for going beyond its ‘E20’ to ‘E30’ petrol-ethanol blend mandate at the earliest.
Notably, “India has mandated the sale of petrol blending with up to 20% ethanol and a minimum octane rating o 95 across all states and Union Territories (UTs) from April 1, 2026. The Union Government has also advanced the deadline for 20% ethanol blending in petrol from 2030 to 2025-26 indicating a commitment to higher ethanol use in transport fuels. This initiative aims to reduce oil imports and emissions while supporting farmers by increasing demand for agricultural products.”
Meanwhile, the GoI has reportedly notified “new fuel standards for petrol blended with up to 30% ethanol use in transport fuels to cut crude oil imports and expand its domestic biofuel ecosystem.”
As per the GoI’s Gazette Notification reportedly published last week, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has reportedly notified technical specifications for the ‘E22’, ‘E25’, ‘E27’ and ‘E30’ fuel blends underlining “admixture of anhydrous ethanol and motor gasoline for usage in the positive ignition engine-powered vehicles.”
However, the BIS notification reportedly “does not mandate immediate nationwide sale of ‘E30’ fuel.”
Notwithstanding that, the All India Distillers’ Association (AIDA) has reportedly been elated at such a move of “higher ethanol adoption, reduced crude oil dependence and a cleaner mobility ecosystem” being undertaken by the GoI reasoning that the decision would “help absorbing the current surplus sugar and ethanol production capacities to the industries concerned.”
Scoring a point, the AIDA data has reported that, “India’s ethanol demand under the 20% blending mandate is around 11 billion litres, while ethanol production capacity is about 20 billion litres as of March 2026.”
Hence, they bat for India going beyond its ‘E20’ to ‘E30’ petrol-ethanol blend mandate soon so that it would augur well and good for them and the country pecuniary position.
