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Informist, Tuesday, Mar. 24, 2026

 

By Afra Abubacker

 

NEW DELHI - India can explore ethanol as a cooking fuel as an alternative to liquefied petroleum gas to strengthen energy security, Kushal Mittal, vice-president, All India Distillers' Association, said. The country produces ethanol-based cooking stoves and exports them to several African countries, he added.

 

"The technology is there. The product is there. How fast it can be scaled will depend on policy clarity on how it will be priced, how it will be moved logistically", Mittal told Informist in an interaction at All India Distillers' Association's first annual distillers' conclave Tuesday. 

 

Unlike LPG, ethanol need not be stored in high-pressure cylinders and is safer to transport. However, it has a lower energy value than LPG. "Energy level is slightly lower as opposed to LPG, there's no doubt about that. But I don't think that should impact the cooking duration. You will be burning a little more fuel as opposed to LPG for the same amount of cooking," Mittal said. 

 

He highlighted that LPG cylinders are heavily subsidised, and ethanol should cost less as it is domestically sourced. Asked if ethanol cylinders for cooking are readily available in the market, Mittal said, "We can't sell ethanol to anyone besides the OMCs (oil marketing companies) for the ethanol blending purpose. So the produce is there, but we can't market it as of now." 

 

Asked why ethanol was not earlier developed and promoted as a cooking fuel in India, Mittal said that it is only recently that the country became a surplus ethanol producer. "Up until now, India was deficit on ethanol. We struggled to meet our ethanol blending targets. Also, LPG was always thought to be a consistent and safe supply, mainly from the Middle East for India. But now with the region being destabilised and also us having surplus capacity of ethanol, I think it's a great opportunity to look at ethanol as an alternate and an added option," he said. 

 

Mittal said using ethanol for cooking could help absorb surplus production capacity in the country. While India has the capacity to produce about 20 billion litres of ethanol annually, only 12 billion litres are required to maintain 20% blending across the country. 

 

To absorb the surplus ethanol capacity, ethanol manufacturers have been urging the government to gradually increase ethanol blending in petrol to 30% from 20%, incentivise the adoption of flex-fuel vehicles that can run on higher ethanol blends, and implement isobutanol blending in diesel. End

 

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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