Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran has advocated for the reintroduction of E10 fuel for older vehicles in India, proposing it as a protective measure against potential damage to rubber seals and components not designed for the current E20 ethanol blend. This suggestion comes amid a broader push for E20 by the government and industry, who maintain its safety and importance for energy security, citing extensive testing that indicates only marginal impacts on mileage and efficiency for compatible vehicles.

Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran has advocated for the reintroduction of E10 fuel for older vehicles in India, proposing it as a protective measure against potential damage to rubber seals and components not designed for the current E20 ethanol blend. This suggestion comes amid a broader push for E20 by the government and industry, who maintain its safety and importance for energy security, citing extensive testing that indicates only marginal impacts on mileage and efficiency for compatible vehicles.

Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran has advocated for the reintroduction of E10 fuel for older vehicles in India, proposing it as a protective measure against potential damage to rubber seals and components not designed for the current E20 ethanol blend. This suggestion comes amid a broader push for E20 by the government and industry, who maintain its safety and importance for energy security, citing extensive testing that indicates only marginal impacts on mileage and efficiency for compatible vehicles.

India’s debate over ethanol-blended petrol has entered a new phase. This time, it was Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran urging the Centre to reintroduce a lower‑blend fuel like E10 alongside the nationwide E20 mandate, even as oil companies and ethanol producers insist the current mix is safe and crucial for energy security.

In an opinion column on The Indian Express, Nageswaran and Department of Economic Affairs consultant Akash Poojari argued that India should “bring back E10 for older vehicles” while holding the overall blending level at 20 per cent until the food‑versus‑fuel trade‑off is fully costed.

Their piece marked the first time a serving top economic official has publicly called for wider fuel choice since E20 became the only petrol variant at pumps from April 1 under the Centre’s biofuel push.

In the column, Nageswaran and Poojari doubled down on the real issue, talking about the rubber seals in roughly 75–80 million older vehicles—carburetted two‑wheelers—that were not designed for ethanol. R “Retrofitting those seals with ethanol-compatible ones is cheap. Still, it happens one vehicle at a time, and covering 75 to 80 million two-wheelers that way will take years, even if every workshop starts today,” read the column.

They batted for reintroducing E10 as a “protection fuel” for this fleet of much older vehicles, giving retrofit programmes and vehicle turnover time to catch up.

Industry and government, however, pushed back. A recent clarification from the petroleum ministry doubled down on the claim that drastic mileage loss and engine damage are “misplaced,” with efficiency drops for compatible vehicles described as marginal and manageable.

Oil marketing companies Indian Oil, BPCL and HPCL told media that intensified pan‑India testing has found E20 quality “consistently within prescribed limits,” with chloride contamination detected only in isolated cases where supplies were suspended.

ISMA director‑general Deepak Ballani, at the NDTV Fuel & Future Summit, said that distillation typically uses just 3–5 litres of water per litre of ethanol, and argued that Indian plants increasingly run on a circular model using sugarcane by‑products for power and fertiliser.

The Centre also maintained that the ethanol programme has saved large amounts of foreign exchange and boosted farmer incomes.

Both these “clarifications” only stated the obvious and did not specifically address the issue of damage to rubber seals in older vehicles.

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