This is the kind of policy that sounds smart on paper… until you look at the numbers. india is aggressively pushing ethanol blending in petrol to cut oil imports and look “green.” But the hidden cost? It’s pouring gasoline on an already raging water crisis.



Here’s the savage truth: producing **one single litre of ethanol from rice** guzzles around **10,000–10,790 litres of water**. That’s not processing — that’s mostly the insane amount needed to grow the rice itself. One kilo of rice already requires 3,000–5,000 litres. Since it takes roughly 2.5–3 kg of rice to make one litre of ethanol, the math is brutal.



The government isn’t hiding it. They allocated 52 lakh tonnes of rice for ethanol in 2024-25 and are now ramping it up to **90 lakh tonnes in 2025-26**. To make that happen, they’re cutting broken rice given to the poor under the public distribution system. Food for people is becoming fuel for cars.



Sugarcane and maize aren’t much better. Sugarcane needs about 3,630 litres of water per litre of ethanol. maize around 4,670. Ethanol plants are clustered in already parched states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and karnataka — places where groundwater is crashing, and farmers are fighting for every drop. These same regions that got blamed for water depletion when growing food are now getting a free pass to do it for “green energy.”



NITI Aayog has already warned that by 2030, groundwater in 21 major cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai, could hit zero. Yet we’re scaling ethanol capacity to 1,822 crore litres, mostly in water-stressed zones.



The contradiction is deafening. Farmers get lectured for growing rice. industries get subsidies for turning it into fuel. Vinasse wastewater from distilleries adds another layer of pollution. This isn’t green energy — it’s greenwashing a water emergency.



India desperately needs real solutions for energy security. But sacrificing water security and food security for optics? That’s not progress. It’s playing with fire in a country already dying of thirst.
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SIBY JEYYA

01/05/2026 02:30 AM