Up to one hundred E85 gasoline dispensing stations will soon be installed across major urban centers in India, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, speeding up the adoption of ethanol-based transportation. This program is an element of the larger effort by the government to lessen reliance on traditional fossil fuels and increase the availability of flex-fuel vehicles.
E85 fuel, which contains up to 85 percent ethanol, has been designated as the mono-fuel standard for flex-fuel vehicles under Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications, according to Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who made the announcement at the launch of the Maruti Suzuki WagonR Flex Fuel.
The government will roll out the infrastructure for E85 fuel in stages, according to Puri.
Up to one hundred E85 dispensing stations will be set up along key urban corridors in the initial stage. By the end of 2027, the network is projected to have grown to 5,000 outlets spread throughout key cities, with an additional 500 stations expected by December 2026.
The goal of the extension is to make it easier for flex-fuel vehicles to be refuelled and to get more people to use ethanol for their transportation needs.
The Minister of Petroleum praised E85 as a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to other transportation options, particularly electric vehicles, and one of the cleanest fuels on the market.
As part of its broader strategy for transitioning to clean energy, the Indian government is actively promoting flex-fuel technology. Other components of this approach include electric mobility efforts, green hydrogen, biofuels, ethanol blending, and biofuels.
According to Puri, the trend toward flex-fuel cars is not only growing in the two-wheeler market, but it is also influencing the passenger car market.
If half of all new two-wheelers and four-wheelers were to adopt flex-fuel technology, the government predicts that the country’s yearly ethanol demand might increase by 311.8 crore litres.
This demand has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by almost 66.4 lakh metric tonnes and increase farmers’ income by nearly Rs 12,403 crore.
In addition to reducing India’s reliance on gasoline imports, he said, higher ethanol production would provide farmers with new avenues for revenue.
The nation’s energy import cost is lowered and our farmers are given a sustainable source of income, going from being Annadatas to Urjadatas, according to Puri.
Image: ET
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