The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoP&NG), India celebrated “World Bio Fuel Day” today. On this occasion, Ministry announced Marketing of High Speed Diesel blended with Bio-diesel in selected retail outlets of OMC’s in New Delhi & Vishakhapatnam (by HPCL), Haldia (by BPCL) and Vijayawada (by IOCL). Its a path breaking step in India’s retail sector for launching Bio-diesel B 5 blend to diesel consumers. As a green initiative by MoP&NG, Bio-diesel blended HSD was launched by the Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan at HPCL’s retail outlet in New Delhi. He also launched the sale of Bio-Diesel blended HSD in other cities through live streaming from Conference Hall of MoP&NG, Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi.
Recently, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas has permitted direct sale of Bio-Diesel (B100) to bulk consumers like Railways, shipping and State Road Transport Corporations etc. Also, Ethanol Blended Petrol program (EBP) is being promoted, where ethanol blending in petrol is going from 5 to 10 % based on the availability of ethanol. Promoting and encouraging Biofuels will not only reduce the import of fossil fuel but also save foreign exchange and emphasise on “Make in India” mission. Biofuels are renewable, biodegradable, sustainable and environmental friendly. More importantly, these programmes will connect agrarian community with direct cash flow.
Internationally, 10th August is observed as "World Bio Diesel Day" in Germany and many other countries to mark the demonstration of Diesel Engine by Rudolf Diesel on various vegetable oils way back in 1893. In 1900 when he demonstrated the engine running on Ground nut oil in Paris he made a prophetic statement which reads like " My Engine today is running on Diesel but a day will come when all the fossil fuels be over, but my engine will continue to run".