Background

India is one of the major oil importing countries in Asia and therefore, biofuels has become an important alternative to fossil fuels. India has recently come out with a policy to promote and develop biofuels in the country in a sustainable way. However, inspite of several scattered efforts to produce biofuels, the country is still lagging in terms of implementation and development activities. Moreover, there are serious concerns that first generation biofuels produced without sufficient consideration of environment and societal impacts, could be counterproductive.

Objective

This study investigated the actual situation of biofuels in India, which appears to be significantly different from its other developing countries. The study primarily looked at the role of central ministries in the promotion of biofuels in the country, fiscal incentives and institutional support for biofuels production and, environmental and social impacts of biofuels production.