E20 row: Keralam begins petrol checks as Karnataka doubles down on excess ethanol claim

The Keralam government on Monday began spot checks at various petrol pumps across the state as Karnataka doubles down on its claim of more than 20 per cent ethanol in E20 petrol.

Samples are being collected from five prominent petrol pumps in the Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Kannur districts. Representatives of oil companies were also asked to join the inspection efforts.

According to a Manorama Online report, the tests took place at pumps like the Vazhayila Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) pump and the Kadaviyar Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) pump in Thiruvananthapuram, a pump operating on the Kannur-Kozhikode National Highway at Kannothum Chal, an IOCL pump near the Kozhikode NGO Quarters, and an IOCL pump in Ernakulam's Chembumukku.

Six one-litre samples will be collected in special ministry-approved containers from each of the selected pumps.

Of these, one will be kept at the pump, another by the state government, and the rest will be sent to approved labs. The District Supply Officer (DSO) stated that the results of the petrol tests will be available within 10 days.

The parallel issue in Karnataka

This comes as the Karnataka government on Monday rejected a joint statement issued by three Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs)—IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL—on the claim of excess ethanol in E20 fuel.

The state government had earlier collected 63 samples from seven districts, including Bengaluru, Kolar, Chikkaballapura, Bengaluru Rural, Ramanagara, Mangaluru and Tumakuru. Many samples were found to have more than 20 per cent ethanol—some even had up to 31.2 per cent.

Standing by the state government's earlier claim, Karnataka's civil supplies minister Rizwan Arshad said the oil companies' statement did not answer a crucial question: how much ethanol content is actually there in petrol being sold at the pump?

The Karnataka government has also pointed out that its findings from labs accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and certified under ISO standards could not be rejected.

It also rejected allegations that these procedures violated the Motor Spirit and High Speed Diesel (Regulation of Supply, Distribution and Prevention of Malpractices) Order, 2005, as the Union petroleum ministry had claimed earlier, citing 893 compliant samples.

Arshad had also lashed out at the OMC labs' own failure to specify the exact ethanol percentage in the 63 samples tested as the reason why they were later tested again by the state government.

Arshad is expected to convene a meeting with representatives of all OMCs to discuss the findings and the way forward, as Karnataka now calls for fuel testing to be done by an independent, transparent mechanism, instead of the oil companies.