February 14, 2008 (Economic Times)- India’s failure to agree a biodiesel policy has forced firms to shelve expansions plans, putting it way behind energy-hungry rivals like China in the drive to greener fuels, a top industry representative said. The delay has also left edible oil processing companies, which have built capacity to turn 1.2 million tonnes of jatropha into biodiesel, in the lurch and $227 million poorer, said Sandeep Chaturvedi, head of the Biodiesel Association of India.
Delhi is blending ethanol with petrol, but has been unable to forge a framework for biodiesel as ministers differ over subsidies needed to kickstart the sector. “It is a clear example of how an indecisive government can jeopardise plans to popularise jatropha to reduce dependence on fossil fuel and pollution,” Chaturvedi told the media.
One tonne of jatropha seed can yield 300 kg of biodiesel, he said. India consumes 40 million tonnes of diesel a year, way above annual petrol demand of 8-9 million tonnes, and in 2003 announced plans to replace around five per cent of its diesel consumption with biodiesel made from jatropha, a crop which thrives.
“By not agreeing to a subsidy or on a policy, the government has dealt a blow to biodiesel which should have been treated at par with ethanol,” he said. Some countries believe biofuels hold out the promise of major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and are an alternative to scarce and expensive fossil fuels.
India is a major polluter and is likely to rise up the world’s league of dirty nations as Asia’s third-largest economy purrs along at annual growth rates of over 8 percent.
It imports 70 percent of its crude oil requirements, and heavily discounts fuel sales by state firms, although on Thursday raised the price of petrol and diesel for the first time in 20 months. Domestic oil retailers are required to mix ethanol with petrol to 5 per cent of volume almost nationwide and India plans to double that to 10 per cent from October 2008, when the new sugarcane crushing season begins.
But other countries have gone much further. Brazil allows as much as 50 percent ethanol to be blended with petrol while China has gone ahead with plans to build one of the world’s first large-scale jatropha-based biodiesel plants, Chaturvedi said.
“The basic reason behind the delay in the biodiesel policy is subsidy. Some ministries favour subsidy for the sector as it is in nascent stage, while the Finance Ministry seems to be opposed to the idea,” he said. “We have been telling the government that jatropha can help India save foreign exchange by lowering crude imports and mitigate pollution risks but to no avail.”
Some experts say jatropha is several years of intensive research away from being a commercially viable biofuel. But Chaturvedi said it leads the pack in India as the hardy plant grows well on barren land with few inputs. “About a million hectares of land is under jatropha cultivation but processing units cannot start functioning due to the lack of guidelines.”
Asia Cleantech 
It is definite that Jatropha could not grown productively in waste land/marginal land.
To have a productivity with commercial viable result.j
Jatropha must be grown on the reasonable croppable land .
it is unavoidable to share the land for food crops for the agro fuel crop.
The tension of the food version energy will be much more serious in the future because the benefit from agrofuel crop may give higher return economically than the food crops.
I just recently attended the International ENergy Week in Singapore (November 3-7) held at the Raffles City Convention Centre’s Stamford Ballroom as organized by the Energy Market Authority and Energy Studies Institute & Bang’s Public Relations.Major issues on biofuel since it competes for agricultural lands and significant requirement for water consumption(pls note that water uses a lot of energy too for both desalination, filtration, distribution, etc.. Thus, our company, Energy Source Consulting with various partners from all over the world is bringing in the technology to increase yield and efficiency of existing Jathropa and other agricultural stock used for biodiesel. Hope we can help individuals, corporations and the Philippine gov’t. Furthermore, we provide advanced technologies on biofuel production like cellulose tech & other complementary technologies like wind tech, hydro, etc.–www.energysourceconsulting.com