Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Puri has said that only four cases of fuel contamination have been reported so far during the nationwide rollout of E20 petrol, rejecting concerns that contamination is widespread across the country.
Speaking at an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Puri said oil marketing companies (OMCs) are conducting extensive daily testing of petrol samples across the country. According to the minister, around 2,000 fuel samples are tested every day from the country’s nearly 1.07 lakh petrol pumps.
Puri said that only four contamination cases have been detected among the samples tested so far, suggesting that the reported incidents are extremely limited compared with the scale of fuel distribution and testing. He also said that millions of consumers visit petrol stations every day, making quality monitoring an important part of the country’s fuel supply system.
Defending India’s biofuel blending programme, Puri said the E20 initiative is performing well and suggested that isolated contamination incidents should not be linked specifically to ethanol blending. He noted that contamination can occur in different products and environments, including food, air, kerosene and diesel, and therefore individual incidents need to be assessed separately.
The minister also accused some people of attempting to put the E20 programme in a negative light by presenting isolated incidents without the broader context of nationwide fuel testing. He said oil marketing companies are expected to issue a detailed statement providing information on the extent of testing carried out across their networks.
India has been steadily expanding ethanol blending in petrol as part of its efforts to reduce crude oil imports, improve energy security and promote the use of domestically produced biofuels. The government has set a strong focus on increasing ethanol use in the transport sector, with E20 petrol becoming increasingly available across the country.
The latest comments from Puri come amid public discussion over fuel quality and vehicle performance following the wider availability of E20 petrol. The government maintains that regular testing by OMCs is intended to identify quality-related issues and ensure that fuel supplied to consumers meets prescribed standards.
