Congress questions environmental impact of nationwide E20 petrol rollout

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh has attacked the Centre's countrywide switch to E20 petrol, telling Deccan Herald that officials are ignoring ethanol's true environmental cost. He argued that most of the ethanol comes from sugarcane, rice and maize rather than crop waste, and put the water needed at roughly 3,630 litres per litre of sugarcane-derived ethanol and as much as 10,790 litres for the rice-based version. Ramesh linked this to sinking groundwater tables and pointed back to a 2021 NITI Aayog recommendation favouring greener feedstocks. He further claimed that distilleries receive subsidised rice, and that the blend has narrowed choice at the pump, pushed up prices and harmed engines, with ethanol makers the ones actually gaining. Ramesh asked the government to make its underlying data and assessments public.