India is set to introduce a mandate for blending isobutanol with diesel later this year, Road Transport and Highways Secretary V. Umashankar said on Friday.
Speaking at the CII Multimodal Transportation and Logistics Summit in New Delhi, the secretary said the move is aimed at improving energy security and decarbonising the road transport sector.
He further mentioned that the government is seriously examining diesel blending, as diesel consumption in the country is nearly double that of petrol, making its impact on energy security significantly larger.
“Blending of diesel has been looked into with great seriousness. Bharat Petroleum is already undertaking strategic research for iso-butanol blending with diesel. And the results are very encouraging," he said. He added, "It is quite likely that the blending mandate will start coming in somewhere later this year. And diesel consumption is almost two times that of petrol consumption”.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is also planning to issue a draft notification on truck-trailers soon to support the development of infrastructure for electric heavy commercial vehicles.
According to the secretary, the proposal is aimed at addressing concerns around battery-swapping and charging infrastructure for electric trucks through a "tractor-trailer interchangeability" model.
"So, what we are looking at is what we call a tractor-trailer interchangeability. Where you don't need to swap the battery, you swap the entire front part of the truck," Umashankar said.
He explained that detachable trailers and charging at designated locations could help reduce idle time for trucks during battery charging.
The secretary also spoke about the government's pilot projects on hydrogen-powered logistics and public transport. He said the results of hydrogen logistics experiments have been positive and operating costs are comparable with other transport systems, though hydrogen refuelling stations remain expensive.