India’s green fuel plans trigger protests as rural India fears water loss and land diversion

NEW DELHI, April 16 — Protests are rippling across rural India against proposed ethanol plants that could ease the country’s dependence on oil and gas ‌imports, but many in the countryside worry the sites put pressure on their water supply, land and health.

India, which imports 80 per cent of its oil and gas, has made ethanol central to its clean energy plans and, as war in the Middle East impacts the price and supply of oil, its energy security.

Delhi increased the ethanol in petrol from 1 per cent in 2014 to 20 per cent last year. But most ethanol is made from maize and sugarcane, crops requiring ‌significant amounts of land and water and that has triggered resistance in several rural regions.

One example is the small town of Tibbi in the north-western state of Rajasthan where hundreds of farmers marched against a proposed ethanol plant late last month.

“This factory will take away our water. No one asked us before starting the work,” said Madan Dugesar, a farmer involved in a series of protests against the plant.

The unrest had been building for months. Residents said police arrested protest leaders in dawn raids in November and cleared a demonstration near the plant, actions that backfired and drew more angry people out onto the streets.

Tibbi villagers said they only realised a large ethanol plant was being built when heavy machinery arrived and deep drilling began last year.

Some of the farmers travelled to the neighbouring state of Punjab to learn about the impact of a similar plant there and how protests had led to the state government closing down an ethanol distillery.

“Underground water got polluted. People started falling sick, and that is when protests began,” said Roman Brar, a farm leader in the town of Zira, the focus of the Punjab protests.

Residents there staged sit-ins, blocked roads and appealed to the National Green Tribunal, India’s top environmental protection body, which is now considering the case.

“We are not against industry,” Brar said. “We are against industries that pollute our water and land.”

Protest grows

In Tibbi, villagers oppose what they say is ‌a water-intensive project in a region dependent on canals and groundwater for irrigation.

Tibbi resident Mahangu Singh Sidhu said the water-table was rapidly falling and an ethanol plant would deplete it further, competing with crops for ⁠water and polluting supplies.

Residents formed a protest group and petitioned local government April last year, but ⁠said they received no response, leading to a permanent protest at the site by August.

In December, thousands gathered and marched towards the plant. Residents ⁠said police carried out a baton charge when crowds reached ⁠the site, after which parts of the plant’s boundary ⁠wall were brought down. Construction was later halted.

A district official wrote to the state government recommending that work be stopped in view of public sentiment, according to official documents.

The district administration and the Environment Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Similar protests have surfaced in other states, including Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, as ethanol expansion moves into water-stressed regions.

A labourer plants rice saplings beside a dried-up well in a field belonging to farmer Balkar Singh in Gaggarpur village in the northern state of Haryana, India, June 21, 2025. — Reuters pic

Policy push meets local resistance

Villagers in Tibbi said their exclusion ⁠from decision-making over the plant was one of the key issues angering communities.

Under a 2021 amendment to environmental rules, India allowed grain-based ethanol distilleries to bypass detailed impact assessments and public hearings, if they supply ethanol for national blending targets. And meet Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) norms.

ZLD is a water treatment process that recycles and reuses all wastewater, ensuring no liquid waste, full of acids and heavy metals, leaves the facility.

Villagers and activists, however, say such safeguards are not always trusted.

In Zira, Brar said untreated waste was diverted underground. Authorities later found evidence of illegal disposal practices, including pumping effluents into underground water, according to local media reports.

To sustain its ethanol blending, India may need an additional 4 million to 8 million hectares of land for maize by 2030, according to an analysis by the Center for Study of Science, ⁠Technology and Policy, a Bangalore-based think tank. This is roughly seven times the size of New York City.

Researchers say this could intensify competition between fuel and food crops and add pressure on water resources.

Narasimha Reddy, an environmental policy expert based in Telangana, said the protests reflected deeper concerns.

“Villagers are not opposed to development that is negotiated, they are ⁠opposed to being erased from decisions that will reshape their lives,” he said.

He said communities feared losing access to water and fertile land. “Beneath the protests lies a deeper fear that in the rush to produce ⁠fuel, the nation’s food-producing capacity is ⁠being quietly traded away.”

Balancing climate and community

The government says its ethanol policy has saved 1.06 trillion rupees (RM47.4 billion) in crude oil imports and avoided 54.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions over the decade to 2025.

To achieve this, India is diverting record amounts of sugarcane, maize and rice to make fuel, reducing the availability of grain for people and cattle, and shifting land away use from food crops, analysts say.

Farming and processing these crops to make ethanol ‌may generate more emissions than fuel, according to a 2022 study funded by the US Department of Agriculture and a 2020 review published the Royal Society.

As India expands its biofuel programme, the dispute in Tibbi highlights the risks of pushing large projects without local support.

“We are not against development,” said Dugesar from Tibbi, adding, “But not at the cost of our land, water and health.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation