Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has dismissed the sudden furore over India’s E20 ethanol-blended petrol as a manufactured controversy, drawing a direct parallel with what he called a similarly engineered scare over LPG cylinder shortages just weeks earlier.
In a wide-ranging conversation with NDTV, Puri questioned the timing of the backlash rather than its substance. The June 5 launch, he noted, fell on World Environment Day, and he believes it unsettled interests opposed to India’s flex-fuel and EV transition – hence the sudden burst of complaints on a policy that had drawn none for nearly two years.