How much of wasteland is there that can be brought under Jatropha cultivation?
There is about 60 million hectares of wasteland in India, out of which the accessible wasteland – on which there is no encroachment or which is not supporting any kind of livelihood – is about 20 million hectares. If we target even 50% of that, i.e. 10 million hectares, and take an average yield of 1.5-1.7 tonnes of oil per hectare, we are talking about extracting 15 million tonnes of oil in steady state of operations, which could be as much as 10% of our total diesel use on the current date. Wouldn’t it be better if the market was allowed to develop first and a policy introduced when there was a substantial amount of trade achieved in the product? At the end of the day, the demand and supply of biofuels will be governed by market forces only. It’s a nascent industry and energy for us is fairly regulated. So within the construct of the industry we have today, we need to ensure that we have right mechanisms and building blocks are in place to encourage the industry without jeopardising
