Meet up with a new flame: LPG crisis shows why India must scale ethanol for cooking
Ethanol burns cleanly, producing primarily CO2 and water vapour, with zero PM2.5, and negligible toxic emissions compared to biomass. Centre for Science and Environment estimates that household cooking emissions in India exceed 350 mn tonnes of CO2 annually, surpassing the entire transport sector. Ethanol clean cooking directly addresses this at scale. Restaurants, hotels and eateries are running out of cooking gas. Indian Hotel & Restaurant Association (AHAR) says 20% of establishments in Mumbai have shut due to disrupted commercial LPG supply, warning that closures could reach 50% if the shortage continues. In Delhi-NCR, commercial cylinders are reportedly selling on the black market for up to ₹1,500. The crunch, of course, stems from the US-Israel war against Iran and the ensuing conflict in West Asia that has disrupted tanker movement through the Hormuz Strait, route for 85-90% of India's LPG imports. Domestic LPG prices have risen by ₹60 in a week, pushing a 14.2 kg cylinder in Delhi to ₹913, the highest since August 2023. With 62% of domestic LPG demand met through imports, this disruption was always a matter of when, not if. The crisis in commercial kitchens, however, is only the visible tip of the iceberg. India's cooking fuel vulnerability runs far deeper. India has made progress under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), connecting 32.99 cr households to LPG, including 10.33 cr subsidised connections. Yet, universal clean cooking remains elusive. About 500 mn people - nearly 40% of the population - rely on biomass fuels. Household air pollution from these fuels contributes to an estimated 1.2 mn premature deaths annually. Even within LPG-connected households, the ₹913-a-cylinder price - ₹613 for PMUY beneficiaries - pushes low-income households back to firewood and dung, particularly in rural areas where these fuels are available. To sustain LPG usage among the poorest, GoI has committed ₹12,000 cr in PMUY subsidies for 2025-26, and sanctioned an additional ₹30,000 cr in compensation to IOCL, BPCL and HPCL for under-recoveries on domestic LPG sales. This is the fiscal cost of a system structurally dependent on imported fuel. While India scrambles to secure LPG supply, its ethanol distilleries are operating below full capacity. India's ethanol production capacity has grown to 1,822 cr litres, supported by about 500 distilleries nationwide. The E20 blending programme requires 1,016 cr litres annually, leaving a substantial surplus available for other applications. Critically, cooking applications don't require anhydrous fuel-grade ethanol at 99.9% purity. 90-95% purity suffices, which lowers both production costs and the barrier to scaling. Diverting about 250 cr litres toward cooking would serve nearly 20 mn households without compromising E20 blending targets. The infrastructure to produce, store and move ethanol across India already exists. Ethanol burns cleanly, producing primarily CO2 and water vapour, with zero PM2.5, and negligible toxic emissions compared to biomass. Centre for Science and Environment estimates that household cooking emissions in India exceed 350 mn tonnes of CO2 annually, surpassing the entire transport sector. Ethanol clean cooking directly addresses this at scale. India's 4.5 mn street food vendors represent a compelling entry point for ethanol cooking deployment. These vendors operate in public spaces where LPG use is often restricted due to explosion risk. Ethanol stoves carry no such risk. Transitioning 1.1-1.3 mn urban vendors from biomass or kerosene to ethanol could reduce 3-4 mn tonnes of CO2 annually, while materially improving occupational health and food safety outcomes. The technology is ready, and its effectiveness is not untested. HPCL and IIT Guwahati have developed an ethanol-fuelled cookstove, and HPCL has announced plans for ethanol ATMs at retail outlets to enable household refills. A pilot in the Sundarbans tested ethanol stoves among households entirely dependent on forest wood, demonstrating viability in resource-constrained, off-grid environments. States are in active conversations about district-level pilots, with existing inter-state ethanol logistics. For example, Karnataka alone has an installed capacity of 270 cr litres, providing a ready supply chain. UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) has documented bioethanol clean-cooking programmes. Validated pilots in Ethiopia and Mozambique - both resource-constrained with high biomass dependence - have demonstrated that ethanol cooking is technically viable, socially acceptable and replicable across diverse geographies. India, with its far larger distillery base, superior logistics infrastructure and existing policy frameworks, is better positioned than any of these countries to deploy ethanol cooking at national scale. India's ethanol ecosystem has matured. But the policy framework has not kept pace. Two specific steps are needed: GoI should designate bioethanol as an approved cooking fuel under PMUY, enabling its integration into the existing subsidy and distribution architecture. 3 state-level pilots should be commissioned, drawing on existing distillery capacity, oil marketing companies (OMC) distribution networks, and stove technology validated at scale. The fiscal arithmetic is unambiguous. Sustaining LPG import dependence at 62% costs over ₹42,000 cr annually in subsidies and under-recoveries. It leaves India structurally exposed to geopolitical shocks, as the current West Asian crisis has demonstrated. Bioethanol cooking is not a replacement for LPG. It is a domestically produced, import-independent complement that India's distilleries can supply today. The capacity exists. The technology exists. The crisis to justify urgency is on every front page this week. What is needed now is a policy decision.
