When Gadkari Said Ethanol Blended Petrol Will Cost Rs. 15 Per Liter: Old Video Goes Viral
The rollout of E20 petrol (a blend of 80% petrol and 20% Ethanol) has set the internet talking. Discussions and debates over it are active on various social media platforms. People actively consume every piece of content around the topic. This has led to many old videos resurfacing in the past few days. One such video shows Union Minister Nitin Gadkari making a tall claim in 2023. The exact occasion/ event in which he made this statement remains unclear, but the video is being actively circulated among netizens.
The Video
The video shows Gadkari talking about petrol prices. He says, “ The petrol that you buy for Rs 120, we will make it available for Rs 15. The average (mileage) that you get from the Rs 120 petrol, you will get from Rs 15 Ethanol blended petrol.” Clearly, he was talking in favour of ethanol-blended fuel.
It, however, remains unclear if the blend being talked about here was E10 or E20. India started rolling out E10 petrol (a blend of 10% Ethanol and 90% petrol) in mid-2022. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched E20 petrol in 2023, with the full rollout set to happen in the years that followed.
The minister’s claim of bringing down the price of petrol to Rs 15 instantly got people talking. Back then, petrol prices were shooting up, and getting the same at Rs 15 was indeed lucrative.
Speaking at a different event in July 2023, Gadkari said “Our government believes that farmers should not only be ‘annadata’ (food providers) but also ‘urjadata’ (energy providers)… all vehicles will now run on ethanol produced by farmers. If we consider an average blend of 60% ethanol and 40% electricity, petrol will be available at the rate of ₹ 15 per litre, benefiting the people”. We have talked in detail about this statement in one of our previous stories.
Claims Made In The Video: What Happens To Them?
The (first) video has him making claims about the ‘averages’ that you get from pure and blended petrols. Today, with Ethanol-blended petrol hitting complete rollout, we see people reporting notable drops in mileage.
Even Gadkari took a U-turn recently and admitted that the use of blended petrol will result in a slight drop in fuel efficiency. He was speaking at Business Today's ‘BT India@100 Summit’ when he made the statement that the use of E20 petrol can bring about a slight dip in mileage. This is due to Ethanol’s lower energy density.
Now comes the other claim- of bringing down the petrol prices. Unfortunately, in most cities, E20 fuel is sold at the same price as the (previous) E10 blend. This deprives users of any significant savings and forces them to use a blend with a lower calorific value than what they were using previously.
At the manufacturer's end, blended fuel (E20) is much cheaper than pure petrol. This price difference is absent in the pump prices. NITI Ayog had recommended a proportionate reduction in pump prices of E20 petrol in one of its reports from 2021. It even proposed considering tax breaks for E20 users.
The report said “For better acceptability of higher ethanol blends in the country, retail price of such fuels should be lower than normal petrol to compensate for the reduction in calorific value and incentivize switching to the blended fuel. Tax breaks on ethanol as a fuel may be considered by the government.”
Sadly, the government is yet to revise the prices of E20 petrol in India, and make them more accessible for users. A survey conducted by LocalCircles, further revealed that 52% of respondents were willing to support E20 if the prices were reduced and if they were offered the choice of multiple blends. This, further shows how critical a lower price point is for E20 to rise into acceptance.