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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Fadnavis writes off Rs 48,000 crore

Mumbai: In a clear indication that the Maharashtra government is leaving no stone unturned to keep the state’s agrarian base happy, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has unleashed yet another massive populist measure. Hot on the heels of relaxing the eligibility criteria to ensure a blanket farm loan waiver, the Chief Minister announced a sweeping Rs 48,000 crore waiver on the pending electricity bills of farmers across the state. Addressing a ‘Krutadnyata Sohala’ (gratitude ceremony)...

Fadnavis writes off Rs 48,000 crore

Mumbai: In a clear indication that the Maharashtra government is leaving no stone unturned to keep the state’s agrarian base happy, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has unleashed yet another massive populist measure. Hot on the heels of relaxing the eligibility criteria to ensure a blanket farm loan waiver, the Chief Minister announced a sweeping Rs 48,000 crore waiver on the pending electricity bills of farmers across the state. Addressing a ‘Krutadnyata Sohala’ (gratitude ceremony) organized by the BJP Kisan Morcha at Mumbai’s Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan on Wednesday, Fadnavis declared that farmers using agricultural pumps of up to 7.5 horsepower will see their historical electricity dues completely wiped out. The announcement was met with the traditional sounding of the Tutari and thunderous applause from hundreds of farmers who had gathered from every corner of the state. The Chief Minister framed the mega-sop as a necessary step to “wipe the farmers’ slate clean,” enabling them to write a new chapter of prosperity. Calculated Pitch The timing and scale of the announcement underscore a government that is boldly embracing populist economics to solidify its political footprint in rural Maharashtra. While Fadnavis maintained that these decisions were taken purely in the interest of the farmers—pointing out that the original loan waiver was announced when no elections were in sight—the political undertones were unmistakable. Taking a sharp dig at the opposition, the Chief Minister accused rival parties of running “political shops” in the name of farmer agitations without understanding the government’s genuine intent. Asserting his grassroots connection, Fadnavis proudly claimed, “I do not make decisions sitting in my house. I am a farmer myself, a man of the soil.” He openly defended the government’s recent move to strip away the stringent conditions attached to the blanket farm loan waiver, signaling that his administration will not hesitate to clear bureaucratic hurdles if it means putting money directly into the hands of the rural voter. Balancing Sops Even as he rained freebies, the Chief Minister attempted to balance the populist optics with a dose of economic pragmatism. He acknowledged that handing out repeated loan waivers is a symptom of deep-rooted agrarian distress, not a permanent cure. Pointing to the Rs 95,000 crore in aid currently being pumped into the agricultural sector by the state and central governments, Fadnavis outlined his administration’s shift toward an investment-driven agricultural model. He championed the success of schemes like ‘Jalyukt Shivar’ and ‘Magel Tyala Shettale’ (farm ponds on demand), claiming these initiatives have already empowered farmers to harvest multiple crops a year. Addressing the core issue of farming costs, he noted that the government already subsidises power to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore annually. By coupling this with a push for solar pumps and solar agricultural feeders, he promised that 100 percent of the state’s farmers would receive uninterrupted daytime electricity by the end of the year. Infra Dream Looking beyond immediate financial relief, the Chief Minister laid out a grandiose vision to permanently drought-proof Maharashtra’s most vulnerable regions. A staggering Rs 6 lakh crore infrastructure pipeline is being planned to ensure the next generation never witnesses a drought. Fadnavis detailed ambitious river-linking projects, including the Wainganga-Nalganga link, to divert excess floodwaters to parched regions. The state plans to construct 24 new dams and raise the height of 16 existing ones to ensure not a single district in Vidarbha faces water scarcity. Furthermore, massive engineering feats are on the drawing board to divert 200 TMC of floodwater from Western Maharashtra to Marathwada, and lift 275 TMC of wasted water from the Ulhas basin to quench the thirst of North Maharashtra and Marathwada. By marrying immediate, massive debt relief with long-term infrastructure promises, the Fadnavis administration is aggressively cementing its pro-farmer narrative. As the Yashwantrao Chavan auditorium echoed with whistles and cheers, it became highly evident that the government’s strategy of pairing mega populist waivers with big-ticket rural dreams is striking a powerful chord with the state’s agrarian voters.

From Green Fuel to Strategic Fuel

India’s ethanol revolution will succeed only if its costs are shared more fairly.

On June 13, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari approved regulations giving E100 fuel legal status in India. The move does more than add two new fuel grades to India’s pumps. It marks the evolution of ethanol from a green fuel and sugar-surplus solution into a strategic fuel designed to reduce India’s exposure to external energy shocks.


For over a decade, the older version of the ethanol programme delivered real, measurable gains. Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on June 4 that the ethanol blending programme has saved India Rs. 1.84 lakh crore in foreign exchange and added Rs. 1.58 lakh crore to farmers’ earnings since 2014-15, while substituting 302 lakh metric tonnes of crude oil and cutting 909 lakh metric tonnes of CO2 emissions.


The new policy answers a harder question. India imports around 85 percent of its crude oil requirements. Tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil moves, keep reminding policymakers what that dependence costs. Gadkari has put India’s annual fossil fuel import bill at roughly Rs. 22 lakh crore, near $250 billion at current exchange rates. Every litre of ethanol that replaces imported crude is a small subtraction from that bill and a small addition to India’s room to manoeuvre when oil prices spike. That logic is sound. The fairness of the transition is a separate question.


Uneven Costs

Energy security is a public good: a steadier rupee, lower inflation and reduced reliance on oil exporters benefit the entire economy. Yet the costs are far less evenly shared. The immediate winners are sugar-producing states, distilleries and the government, which enjoys a lower import bill and greater diplomatic flexibility.


Nor is the environmental case as straightforward as the carbon figures suggest. Producing a litre of sugarcane-based ethanol requires about 2,860 litres of water, according to NITI Aayog. Most ethanol comes from sugarcane and maize grown in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab - states already overexploiting groundwater. Ethanol is also competing with food and feed. Maize prices have risen as distilleries compete with the poultry industry, while India has shifted from being a maize exporter to an importer. The Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy estimates that meeting ethanol targets by 2030 could require additional maize acreage equivalent to a quarter of India’s farmland. In Rajasthan’s Tibbi, farmers have already protested against a new ethanol plant.


A cleaner path exists. Second-generation ethanol made from paddy straw, sugarcane bagasse and other crop waste does not compete with food or fresh water the same way first-generation ethanol does. India has a handful of 2G plants running, including one at Panipat, but high capital costs and slow technology adoption keep them marginal next to sugarcane and grain-based ethanol.


E85 and E100 need flex-fuel vehicles built for higher ethanol shares. Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp have begun rolling out flex-fuel models, but as of April this year no automaker had a vehicle commercially available that ran on E85, and Maruti’s own flex-fuel prototype only appeared in June. Neither company has disclosed what the flex-fuel variants will cost against standard petrol models.


The fuel itself is cheaper at the pump. Delhi’s first E85 station, opened on June 5 at Indian Oil’s Pusa Road outlet, priced the fuel at Rs. 82.12 a litre, about Rs. 20 below regular E20 petrol. But ethanol carries less energy than petrol, and E85 cuts mileage by 20 to 35 percent compared with petrol. A cheaper litre that takes you fewer kilometres is not automatically a cheaper kilometre. Gadkari has asked the finance ministry to cut GST on E85 from 18 percent to 5 percent, which would help close that gap. The GST Council has not decided yet, and its decision in the coming weeks will tell us whether the government means to share the cost of this transition or leave it with early adopters.


There is a fiscal cost behind the consumer one. Oil marketing companies are set to pay farmers close to Rs. 40,000 crore in 2025 alone under the blending programme, on top of the subsidies and soft loans that prop up ethanol distilleries.


Infrastructure tells a similar story. The government’s rollout plan covers Delhi-NCR and the Mumbai-Pune-Nagpur corridor first, with a target of 500 E85 outlets by December 2026 and 5,000 by the end of 2027. A household outside those corridors that buys a flex-fuel vehicle today pays for infrastructure it cannot yet use.


This is where the comparison with E20 matters. The earlier blending programme spread its costs thinly across every petrol buyer in the country, through a few percentage points of ethanol nobody had to think about or pay extra for. E85 and E100 work differently. They ask a smaller group of early adopters to absorb a vehicle upgrade, a pricing gap and an infrastructure lag all at once, in exchange for a national benefit every taxpayer will eventually share.


Fairer Transition

None of this is an argument against E85 and E100. India needs to cut its dependence on imported crude, and ethanol is the most realistic domestic substitute on the table right now. The environmental costs of first-generation ethanol are real too. The question is who absorbs its costs, and what kind of ethanol pays for it.


The transition can be made fairer in four ways: extend any GST cut on E85 to flex-fuel vehicles; link vehicle sales to the availability of E85 pumps; require automakers to disclose price premiums and real-world mileage; and shift more incentives towards second-generation ethanol that does not strain water tables or food supplies.


For a decade, India’s ethanol programme delivered foreign-exchange savings and higher farm incomes without imposing visible costs on consumers or water-stressed regions. E85 and E100 change that equation. They turn a public good - energy security - into an upfront private cost borne first by households and farming regions, while the wider benefits are shared by the country as a whole.


 (The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

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