Amid media reports claiming that the government is planning to raise ethanol blending in petrol to 27%, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has issued a statement denying these claims, calling them speculative, misleading, and premature at this stage.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the ministry clarified, “There is a report in a section of the media that India is planning to increase ethanol blending to 27% under the #EBP Programme. It is to clarify that the ethanol blending in India is implemented as per the “Roadmap for Ethanol Blending in India 2020-25”, which sets out yearly blending target up to Ethanol Supply Year (ESY) 2025-26 ending on 31st Oct, 2026. As of now, we are in ESY 2024-25, which concludes on 31st Oct, 2025 and the blending target for upcoming ESY (from 1st Nov, 2025) remains 20%, as per the roadmap.”
“The EBP Programme has made significant contributions over the last decade. Till ESY 2023–24, it has resulted in expeditious payment of more than Rs. 90,000 crore to farmers, savings of more than Rs. 1,00,000 crore of foreign exchange, net CO2 reduction of about 576 lakh metric tonne and substitution of more than 190 lakh metric tonnes of crude oil. For ethanol blending targets beyond ESY 2025-26, an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has been constituted by the Government to recommend future targets. The IMC is yet to submit its report. Ethanol blending targets to be recommended by the IMC starts from ESY 2026-27, i.e. from 1st Nov, 2026. Thus, any claim about a planned increase to 27% blending at this stage is speculative, misleading, and mischievous. Developments in the matter will be brought to the notice of the citizens by the Government,” MoPNG further added.
The government’s current target is to achieve 20% ethanol blending in petrol by ESY 2025-26. Since the EBP Programme’s inception, ethanol blending has grown from 38 crore litres in ESY 2013-14 to over 707.4 crore litres in ESY 2023-24. This expansion helped the country reach an average ethanol blending rate of 14.6% in ESY 2023–24.
In the current ESY 2024–25, ethanol blending touched 19.9% in June 2025, while the average blending rate from November 2024 to June 2025 stood at 18.9%.
