When the story of Indian industries would be written in future, it would be inevitably pointed out that the glorious opportunity to exploit jatropha plantation that could have given many benefits to India during the period of global crude oil price crisis was lost due to lack of clarity in the policies of the government .
The Indian biodiesel industry is facing crisis at the present time and suffers from lack of confidence. This would be readily evident to any one who would care to discuss the state of affairs with any individual or organizations who are involved in the biodiesel industry. It is sad that the Indian jatropha biodiesel industry has become mere media hype.
If anyone were to be held responsible for such state of affairs, the blame should be squarely laid on the Government of India and those incharge of running the government in the last few years.
Recently, a genuine organization from Europe wanted to buy 1000 tonnes of jatropha vegetable oil (not trans esterified oil) from India and inspite of hectic efforts over a few months, the potential overseas buyer could not even buy 50 tonnes of jatropha oil from India. The overseas buyer felt that whatever the publicity given with regard to Indian biodiesel industry is unreal. The overseas buyer said that claims about the Indian biodiesel industry are only exaggerated.
A few years back, there was huge euphoria in India about the prospects for jatropha based biodiesel projects and several seminars and training programmes were held all over India. Former President of India Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam went to the extent of planning jatropha farm in Raj Bhawan in Delhi. Several state governments announced special schemes to promote and encourage jatropha cultivation. There was enthusiastic response from the entrepreneurs and investors and at one time, it was even claimed that India would become forerunner in the global biodiesel industry.
But nothing of that sort has happened. What is the reason?
A careful analysis would indicate that jatropha biodiesel projects could not take off in India, since Government of India failed to provide any meaningful encouragement to the industry by way of extending support in price mechanism and technology optimization measures.
Trans esterified jatropha oil which is produced from jatropha vegetable oil, has to be blended with petroleum diesel and buyers for trans esterified jatropha oil could be only government owned oil corporations at present. Indian Oil Corporation, obviously with the approval of the Government of India, fixed unrealistic price for jatropha trans esterified oil for its procurement. The price was found to be uneconomical by the jatropha industry, as the offered price could hardly cover the cost of production.
What was surprising was that the government was paying 100 US$ and more and even upto 140US$ per barrel of crude in foreign exchange but was unwilling to extend subsidy support in rupees to the Indian jatropha industry that could have brought great benefits in several ways.
With the price of crude oil now coming down to the level of 35 US$ to 40 US$ per barrel , enthusiasm for jatropha based biofuel appears to have gone away in India . Though the Government of India has been talking about jatropha biofuel plans and schemes from time to time, the lack of thrust in the scheme of the government is evident.
The project promoters who have acquired land for cultivation of jatropha for planting and have set up facilities for extraction of oil and trans esterification of oil are now keeping their fingers crossed, not knowing as to what is in store for them in future.
What is particularly surprising is that even after facing extremely difficult conditions due to the huge increase in the price of crude oil in the past , there appears to be no perceptible hurry on the part of the Government of India to speed up jatropha bio diesel projects ,which is the only way to reduce dependence on crude oil imports in significant manner and avoid vulnerability to the international crude oil price fluctuations.
The government appears to be over anxious to spend several thousand million of rupees for setting up nuclear power projects which have evoked controversies, but is not showing even fraction of such interest in the jatropha biodiesel projects.
Several experts predict that the price of the crude oil would once again shoot up when the present recessionary trends in the global economy would go away.
When this would happen, it is likely that India would once again face difficult conditions in the crude oil front. The jatropha biofuel project opportunities would remain unexploited.
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