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India’s apex ethanol industry body, All India Distillers' Association (AIDA), has urged the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to make significant revisions to the proposed Corporate Average Fuel Consumption (CAFE-III) norms, which are set to cover the period from FY 2027–28 to FY 2031–32.
In a letter dated April 22, 2026, addressed to Secretary Neeraj Mittal, AIDA President Vijendra Singh described the draft framework as “strategically imbalanced.” He stated that the current proposal favours battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids through higher incentives, while standalone flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs), which run on ethanol-blended fuel, receive a relatively low incentive factor of 1.1.
AIDA has outlined four key demands, including increasing the Volume Derogation Factor for FFVs to 2.0–2.5, adopting a technology-neutral compliance framework that equally supports electrification, hybridisation, and ethanol-based solutions, aligning CAFE-III with India’s Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP), and recognising the well-to-wheel lifecycle emissions benefits of domestically produced ethanol within the regulatory framework.
The association emphasised that FFVs present an immediately deployable and cost-effective pathway for decarbonisation, helping to reduce infrastructure challenges and import dependencies linked to rapid electrification.
