Mandatory isobutanol blending with diesel likely this year, says road secy
This story was originally published at 19:36 IST on 29 May 2026
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NEW DELHI – India is likely to introduce a mandate for isobutanol blending with diesel later this year to improve energy security and reduce carbon emissions, V. Umashankar, secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, said Friday. The government has mandated ethanol blending with petrol since 2003, and has been exploring a biofuel that can be blended with diesel on a pilot basis since ethanol does not bind with diesel.
"Blending of diesel has been looked into with great seriousness. Bharat Petroleum is already undertaking strategic research for isobutanol blending with diesel. And the results are very encouraging," the secretary said at the Confederation of Indian Industry's Multimodal Transportation and Logistics Summit here.
"It is quite likely that the blending mandate will start coming in somewhere later this year. And diesel consumption is almost two times that of petrol consumption. So, the impact of blending in terms of diesel is concerned will have a far greater impact on our energy security than even petrol blending," he said.
The government has been actively promoting biofuel blending across petrol, diesel, and aviation turbine fuel to reduce dependency on crude oil imports and save foreign exchange. The prolonged conflict in West Asia has only given it an added impetus. India is among the top producers of sugarcane and rice globally and has increasingly diverted the two crops for ethanol production.
The ministry plans to bring a draft notification on truck-trailers soon to address concerns around battery-swapping and charging infrastructure for electric trucks, the secretary said. "So, what we are looking at is what we call a tractor-trailer interchangeability. Where you don't need to swap the battery, you swap the entire front part of the truck," Umashankar said.
The government is also exploring pilot projects on hydrogen-powered logistics and public transport systems. "The results are very good. The key cost is comparable with respect to other forms of logistics travel. It's not high. Only high-cost element there is the hydrogen re-fuelling stations," he said. End
Reported by Afra Abubacker
Edited by Shubhayan Bhattacharya
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