PolicyFuel
Oil companies reject Karnataka's 31.2% ethanol finding, say E20 petrol meets BIS standard
IOCL, HPCL and BPCL say the state's samples were drawn and tested without them. Rahul Gandhi has asked Prime Minister Modi how much ethanol is really in petrol.
Key points
- Karnataka says petrol from IOCL, HPCL and BPCL pumps carried up to 31.2% ethanol, against the 20% blend the Centre has approved.
- The three oil companies say their E20 petrol follows IS 17021 and that 893 samples from 27 states and Union Territories tested between 19% and 21%.
- Rahul Gandhi has taken up the claim, writing that "E20 turned into 420", and has asked the Prime Minister for the real figure.
Karnataka’s government has said that petrol sold by state-run oil companies in seven districts contained up to 31.2% ethanol, well above the 20% blend permitted under the E20 programme. On Saturday the three companies named, Indian Oil (IOCL), HPCL and BPCL, rejected the finding in a joint statement and said their petrol “conforms to” the Bureau of Indian Standards norm IS 17021.
What Karnataka found
Food and Civil Supplies Minister Rizwan Arshad released the results on Friday, November 6. The state collected 63 petrol samples from Bengaluru, Bengaluru Rural, Kolar, Chikkaballapura, Ramanagara, Tumakuru and Mangaluru and had them tested at the Shriram Research Institute in Bengaluru. Readings ran from 13.5% to 31.2%. The highest was an IOCL sample at 31.2%, followed by an HPCL sample at 30.5%.
Arshad said nearly four in five samples were above 20%. He said the state began testing after motorists complained of poorer mileage and frequent repairs, and that the oil companies’ own lab reports did not disclose ethanol content. Karnataka has asked the Centre to act against companies that supply petrol above 20% ethanol, to put the blend on a label at every pump and to set up a way to compensate affected vehicle owners. The state estimates the burden on consumers at about ₹1.01 lakh crore a year, made up of roughly ₹62,000 crore in lost mileage and ₹39,000 crore in repairs.
The companies’ reply
IOCL, HPCL and BPCL said none of their representatives took part in collecting the samples, that they had asked for retained samples, outlet-wise details and lab reports and not received them, and that the results came from a third-party laboratory and not one named in the fuel control order. They said the test certificates did not give the method, and they argued that the densities reported, 0.742 to 0.749 g/cc, do not fit ethanol levels as high as claimed.
Their own figures point the other way. Under monitoring by the Centre for High Technology, which works under the Petroleum Ministry, all 893 E20 samples drawn across 27 states and Union Territories fell in the 19% to 21% range. Fifty-six of them came from Karnataka and averaged 19.30%. The companies called the state’s cost estimate speculative and said extra ethanol would raise their own costs. They asked Karnataka for its complete sampling records and for access to counterpart samples for joint testing at an authorised laboratory.
Politics of the row
Rahul Gandhi took the matter up in a Hindi post on X on Saturday morning. “E20 turned into 420 - stealing petrol from the public’s cars!” he wrote, referring to the old Indian Penal Code section on cheating. He said 11 of 14 samples exceeded 20% and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi how much ethanol is actually in petrol and when action would follow against companies mixing more than 20%.
Arshad has called on Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Nitin Gadkari to explain. In October Puri described concerns about E20 as a “contrived narrative”, and the Centre has said 20% remains the target. No separate statement from the Petroleum Ministry on Karnataka’s findings had been issued by early afternoon on Saturday.