Lousy idea

BS OPINION

 Involving the plantation of an oilseed-bearing plant called jatropha (Jetropha curcas) on nearly 3 million hectares, this scheme targets 5 per cent replacement of petro-diesel by bio-fuel during in the next three years, at a cost of a whopping Rs 1,500 crore. And to make all this happen, a new national mission is to be established.

 The impracticality of the idea should be obvious. For starters, where is the land for all this cultivation? Even degraded forest land or other waste and semi-waste land belongs to panchayats, the forest and revenue departments, and religious bodies, trusts and individuals, most of whom will protect turf against external intervention with regard to land use.

 This was the experience of the wasteland development programme launched by Rajiv Gandhi to rejuvenate 5 million hectares annually through reforestation.

 The programme flopped because the implementing agencies could not get land even for growing the seedlings, let alone for reforestation. Again, the proposal for raising oil palm plantations on under-utilised lands to augment edible oil availability ended up in a fiasco, for similar reasons. The jatropha plantation programme is unlikely to meet a different fate.

 This apart, the very choice of the jatropha plant may be flawed. Not much is known about the propagation, agronomic requirements, production potential and post-harvest handling of the produce of this plant.

 Nor is commercial-scale technology for extraction of jatropha oil and its trans-esterification (an essential process to convert it into bio-fuel) available.

 Currently, some wild plantations of jatropha exist in the Jhabua tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh, where local communities collect the seeds and barter them for groceries. The limited quantity of jatropha oil that is available now is used mainly in soap-making.

 Furthermore, though the technical feasibility and ecological pay-off of bio-fuel are beyond doubt, its use on a mass scale has not been successful anywhere except Brazil, where it is heavily subsidised.

 And Brazil