New Delhi: India has begun rolling out 50-100 ethanol dispensing stations across the Delhi-NCR region, Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur in a bid to cut its dependence on imported fossil fuels, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday. Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of India's first flex-fuel car by Maruti Suzuki, Puri said he expects the network to grow to 500 stations by the end of 2026 and to 5,000 by the end of 2027.
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"I think we are starting with about 50 to 100 (ethanol) dispensing stations in Delhi-NCR region, Pune, Mumbai, and Nagpur, etc. This 50-100 (ethanol) dispensing stations will hopefully go up to 500 towards the end of 2026," he said.
The minister said making Euro VI-standard vehicles compliant with E100 would further help trim India's fossil fuel import bill, which he pegged at around USD 120 billion.
Puri said the government is also lining up supportive measures to drive adoption, including pricing support, road tax concessions, availability of E85 testing fuel, special identifiers for flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) and retail outlets, consumer awareness drives, and development of storage and dispensing infrastructure.
"This is not merely a transition in fuel, but it is the creation of a complete ecosystem for cleaner mobility, stronger energy security, and greater self-reliance," he said.
Asked about the daily losses oil marketing companies are absorbing by buying crude, gas and LPG at higher prices while shielding consumers through lower retail prices, the minister said the strain persists. "They are still quite high... Rs 500-550 crore per day loss," he said.
Puri said 60 percent of India's LPG and 90 percent of its crude oil arrives via the Strait of Hormuz, but supplies had held firm through recent turbulence. "In the 93 or 94 days that have elapsed (after the attack of the US and Israel on Iran on February 28), there has not been a single dry out anywhere. There has been no shortage," he claimed.
He alleged that some individuals had tried to exploit the situation by spreading false news and seeking to engineer artificial shortages where none existed. India, he said, ranks just behind Japan among countries with the lowest increase in fuel prices.
The minister said that if half of new two-wheelers and four-wheelers were made flex-fuel compliant, India could unlock 311.8 crore litres of additional ethanol demand and Rs 12,403 crore in extra income for farmers.
He noted that ethanol blending in petrol has risen from 1.5 percent in 2014 to 20 percent today, yielding foreign exchange savings of Rs 1.84 lakh crore by substituting 302 lakh metric tonnes of crude oil. The arrival of flex-fuel technology in the passenger vehicle segment, he said, marks the start of a new chapter in India's energy transition rather than a mere product launch.
Puri pointed out that India has nearly 37 lakh passenger vehicles representing the aspirations of middle-class India, and that large-scale adoption of flex-fuel technology in the segment could sharply multiply the impact of ethanol-based mobility.
The minister credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership for balancing what he described as the three pillars of India's energy strategy — availability, affordability and sustainability.
On availability, he said India kept supplies of crude oil, LPG and natural gas uninterrupted despite global volatility. "India increased domestic LPG production from 32 TMT per day pre-crisis to nearly 52 TMT per day, while also expanding the transition towards piped natural gas and CNG," he said.
On affordability, Puri said India recorded one of the lowest increases in fuel prices globally, recalling the prime minister's move to cut central excise duties on petrol and diesel by Rs 10 a litre. On sustainability, he drew on his earlier experience in Brazil and the United States, where sugar- and maize-based ethanol blending had already proven successful, and called India's blending programme one of the country's most successful energy transition initiatives.
He said the programme was built through a whole-of-government approach involving farmers, ethanol producers, oil marketing companies, vehicle manufacturers, scientists and financial institutions, adding that India can now produce ethanol from feedstocks such as broken grains, agricultural waste, bamboo and seaweed.
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The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has proposed amendments to vehicle emission rules to broaden the scope for higher ethanol blends and alternative fuels, opening the way for flex-fuel and pure biofuel vehicles across categories. The draft changes to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 aim to enable wider use of E85 (a blend of 85 percent ethanol with petrol) and E100 (allowing vehicles to run on nearly pure ethanol), as well as B100 biodiesel and hydrogen-CNG combinations.
India has already reached 20 percent ethanol blending with petrol, using biomass such as sugarcane, corn or rice as feedstock.