Govt's Next Step Is E25 Blended Petrol Says Report: Why It Seems Like A Planted Story
A report quoting unnamed government officials has suggested that ethanol blending in petrol could move from the current 20 percent to 25 percent, in what is described as a "calibrated manner." No official is named. No ministry has issued a formal statement. No timeline is specified. The story cites officials in the plural but gives you nothing to pin the claim to.
That pattern is familiar to anyone who has watched how policy balloons are floated here. You release an idea through a compliant wire pickup, let it circulate for a few days, track the reaction, and then decide your next move.
If the response is sharply negative, a ministry spokesperson issues a clarification, usually within a week, essentially saying no formal decision has been taken. If the reaction is more muted, the idea stays in circulation and eventually gets policy traction.
E25 is not new as a trial balloon. Similar whispers about E27 surfaced roughly two years ago. Those were quietly denied. Then the ethanol lobby, backed by sugar industry interests, began pushing E22 as a more moderate ask.
Around the same time, officials from the government began saying E21 was technically feasible because it falls within a five percent deviation from the E20 standard, which is itself a well-known rule-of-thumb that lowers the bar for implementation without a full regulatory overhaul.
The sequence this time appears to be the same mechanism at work. Float E25 as the headline number. Let pushback build. Deny it. Then reframe E21 or E22 as the reasonable middle ground. The anchor has moved, and the original ask looks extreme compared to the new ask, which is itself higher than where you started.
The West Asia conflict has given the ethanol bloc its best argument in years. Global energy disruption is real, and the government's case for domestic alternatives has never been easier to make.
Ethanol blending has already delivered measurable savings: E20 has helped avoid 4.5 crore barrels of crude oil imports annually, cutting foreign exchange outflow by roughly Rs 1.5 lakh crore cumulatively.
That is a compelling number for a government acutely conscious of current account pressures during an oil supply crunch.
The sugar and ethanol industry has a straightforward interest in higher blending mandates. More ethanol in petrol means more offtake, higher prices for producers, and greater political relevance for a lobby that has historically been well-organised and well-connected.
Most vehicles on the road today are certified for E20. Cars sold before April 2023 were calibrated for E10. When E20 was rolled out nationally in August 2025, the government acknowledged that older vehicles might experience "marginal" mileage drops.
Automakers were more candid in private. Several flagged that vehicles calibrated for E10 running on E20 could fail in-service conformity checks under BS6 emission norms, through no fault of the vehicle itself, because the fuel had changed.
E25 would extend that problem to a wider range of vehicles. No large-scale ARAI or IOCL validation study has been completed for E25 the way one was completed for E20 before its rollout.
The auto industry's written submissions to the government have already made clear that E25 lacks the testing foundation to support a rapid transition.
Watch for the denial. It will likely arrive within a week, and it will almost certainly be followed by E21or E22 being described as the new realistic target.