00:02Here's everything that has happened with petrol in India since Nathan
00:04Gadkari became the road transport minister in 2014. It was in 2004 that
00:10India first formalized the rollout of 5% ethanol blended petrol but for the
00:14next decade progress was stagnant. It was in late 2014 under Gadkari's watch that
00:18the push really began. The government fixed a base price for ethanol
00:21procurement and slashed taxes from 18% to 5% making ethanol more lucrative for
00:27sugarcane producers and steadily the amount of ethanol blended into petrol
00:31kept increasing. First came E5, 5% ethanol mixed with 95% petrol then E10 then came
00:37E20 and now in 2026 E85 is here. E85 has been introduced specifically for newer
00:43flex fuel vehicles. Hero's Plender and Toyota's Innova High Cross are some
00:47vehicles that can take E85. Buyers can choose whether to go for such vehicles
00:51but owners of conventional petrol cars don't have that choice. For them E20 is
00:55effectively the only petrol available while the government says that it
00:59reduces dependency on other countries for importing petrol and that it's
01:02helping farmers make more money. Some consumers have reported a range of
01:06problems. Lower mileage, higher cost of repairs and lower performance. Critics have
01:10also pointed to how one litre of ethanol from rice requires 10,000 litres of
01:14water and can potentially further lower India's water table. The opposition has
01:18also accused Gadkari of a conflict of interest pointing to his son's
01:21involvement in ethanol related businesses. Over the past decade ethanol
01:28blending has evolved quite a bit. The next target on the road map is diesel.
01:31We can't add ethanol in the diesel. We can't add ethanol in the diesel. So
01:34ethanol has also become isobetanol from ethanol and isobetanol can be
01:38alternative for diesel. No.
01:4005. ORF-2.
01:4105.4.0.1.
01:41You
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