Consumers Short Changed On Blended Petrol

Suman Sahai

Ever since India’s ethanol blending program (mixing ethanol with petrol) was started, there have been concerns about the impact of ethanol on the functioning of the automobile engines.

The original timeline for mixing ethanol with petroleum was 10% by 2022 and the blending target for 20% ethanol was 2030. Both blending targets were reached early, 6 months in the case of the 10% target and 5 years for the 20% target which was reached in 2025.

As the government was racing ahead to increase the amount of ethanol it was mixing with the petrol that the consumer was buying, it neglected to keep the consumer informed about the implications of ethanol blending in automobile fuels. Lots of expert commentaries began to appear on the potential downside of ethanol blending. Reports are coming in that the fuel efficiency of blended petrol was poor, that the mileage derived from blended petrol was lower than normal petrol because ethanol has less energy than gasoline.

This short changes the owners of all, four, three and two wheeler vehicles and has economic implications for every vehicle owner. This will be especially hard hitting for commercial vehicles like the three wheeler autos and transporters.

Apart from this, there were reports that the acceleration of vehicles using blended fuel, was lower and even more serious, ethanol blended fuel will damage older vehicles with engines that are not made for its use. Ethanol’s oxygen content and its higher moisture content can also cause rusting of metallic parts and disintegration of plastic and rubber fittings in the engine. It stands to reason that the higher the ethanol content in the petrol, the greater the damage to the motor. So 20% ethanol blending will in principle cause more damage to the engine than 10 % blended petrol.

The government continued to rebut these warnings, harping instead on the benefits to the environment because of lower emissions and less pollution. Its other justification was the saving of foreign exchange by having to import less petroleum. All this became untenable in the face of evidence of damage and finally the Petroleum Ministry had to concede that there were in fact problems with petrol that was mixed with ethanol.

In its statement of 5 August, 2025, while continuing to emphasize the benefits of ethanol blended fuel and reiterating that there weren’t really any harmful impacts on the engine, the government was compelled to admit that “ethanol has a lower energy density than petrol, leading to a slight reduction in mileage, about 1–2% for four-wheelers calibrated for E20 and designed for E10, and roughly 3–6% in other vehicles”.

So older vehicles will face a mileage reduction of upto 6% ! The Ministry adds that “this small efficiency loss can be reduced further with better engine tuning and ( putting in ) E20-compatible materials.”

Going further, the Ministry says “In some older vehicles, replacing certain rubber parts or gaskets may be recommended after about 20,000 to 30,000 km of use. This replacement is cost-effective and can be conveniently performed during routine vehicle servicing.”

Clearly, the government has been less than open on the downside of ethanol blending. It should have informed the consumers about what it was proposing to do and what the implications of such a change would be. Billboards at petrol stations could have laid out the pros and cons of ethanol blending so that the consumer was not in the dark about what she was putting into her vehicle, Gas station attendants should have been trained to answer questions on the benefits and drawbacks of ethanol mixed petrol, None of this was done.

The two main questions from the consumer’s standpoint:

If cheaper ethanol is being mixed with petrol, the price of the blended fuel should be lower than normal petrol for the consumer. But that is not the case. So in essence, the government is pocketing all the savings on the petrol import bill instead of passing some of it to the consumer. In addition, it is also making money off the consumer by charging her the full price of normal petrol instead of the reduced price of blended petrol.

 While the government rakes in the money in the above manner, it has conveniently passed on to the consumer, the costs of reduced fuel efficiency and reduced mileage etc. In addition, it has also passed on to the consumer the costs of changing engine parts to rectify the damage that ethanol blended fuel will cause. Suman Sahai is the founder of Gene Campaign. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.

Source: https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/government-gets-the-money-consumers-pay-the-cost-1193734