Biofuels too hot for India, says environment minister Ramesh

India has neither the land nor the agricultural liberty to promote biofuels, minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh said today. Instead, he pitched for hybrids and gas-run vehicles.

"Biofuel does not have a relevant role in the Indian context in view of land limitations and food security," he told the inaugural session of the ongoing 4th environment-friendly vehicles conference in New Delhi.

In October 2007, under pressure from the developed world to cut emissions of the greenhouse gasses produced by fossil fuel combustion, India had fallen in line and mandated that all diesel should contain 5 per cent of biofuel by volume.

Biofuels are produced from plants like sugarcane. They burn cleaner than fossil fuels. Biodiesels, a subset of biofuels, are produced from vegetable or animal oil. There is a growing perception that countries like Brazil switching to biofuel is a reason for food prices shooting up lately.

Bharat IV norms coming soon
Ramesh also said the government is in the final stage of notifying the fuel efficiency standards for the automobile sector in the country, which would be enforced from 2011.

''We are right now engaged in finalising administrative formalities on how these standards have to be notified - either through the Energy Conservation Act or the Motor Vehicles Act,'' Ramesh said at the conference.

He said there could be no two opinions that ''we should move to a mandatory fuel efficiency standards regime by 2011'', as the transport sector contributes about 15-20 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the country. How it should be done is being debated within the government, he said.

The transport sector is placed at number three after the power and agriculture sectors as far as Indian greenhouse gas emissions are concerned. ''But the rate at which the automobile sector is growing, our own estimations are that by the year 2030 it could account close to 25 per cent of our GHG emissions. Hence not only because of the air pollution point of view but also the climate change point of view, environment-friendly transportation assume special importance,'' Ramesh said.