India’s crude oil imports could be reduced to a significant degree by the the country’s love for fried food.

Ramakrishna Y.B., the head of an Indian government panel that’s looking at the potential for development of usable fuels derived from plants, claims that the nation of 1.3 billion people can make at least 2 million tons of biodiesel every year by processing of used cooking oil from restaurant chains.

“These are low hanging fruits,’’ Ramakrishna said in an interview in New Delhi on Aug. 3. Without specifying eh name of any company, he also said that investments in biofuels by state-run Indian fuel retailers are due to be announced later this week.

Highlighting the risks to the fastest-expanding major economy from a heavy reliance on imports, India’s crude consumption growth is expected to outstrip all other nations in the decades ahead. With the help of increased domestic output and greater use of alternative fuels, significant reduction of such overseas energy purchases by 10 percentage points by 2022 could be possible and which is the goal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The entire 10 percent reduction in oil imports can be met through biofuels,’’ Ramakrishna said.

Based on the data available with the Oil Ministry, in the 12 months through March 31, 75 million tons of diesel and 22 million tons of gasoline was consumed by Indian consumers. India ranks very high on the list of consumers of edible oil in the world. Usage of edible oil was pegged at 20 million tons to 22 million tons per year by Ramakrishna. Putting together and in place, a reliable system to collect and reuse these supplies is the challenge for the scientists and the government.

Blending of more ethanol with gasoline, and biodiesel with regular diesel has been strong challenge for the more than a decade for the $2 trillion Indian economy. 5 percent blending for both gasoline and diesel is the goal this year. While presently there’s very little mixing of diesel and biodiesel, the figure for gasoline is about 3.6 percent.

About 80 percent of the crude oil that is required by the country is imported by India. According to the estimates of the International Energy Agency, this Asian country will be the fastest-growing crude consumer in the world through 2040 and it is expected that India would also surpass Japan to become the world’s third-largest oil user this year itself.

“We have to reduce import dependency,” Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told a gathering of experts and media in New Delhi on Aug. 1.

If farming policies are supportive by encouraging more cultivation of biofuel crops such as jatropha, as much as 10 percent of biodiesel could be blended in diesel and achievement of 20 percent blending of ethanol in gasoline could be possible within a decade’s time,

“We just need to provide farmers quality seeds and a fair price,” he said.

(Adapted from Bloomberg)