There have been debates in Canada and the US, for example, on the use of MMT which is another oxygenate. Therefore, it is time that a committee be set up with a concerned policy on which oxygenate will be allowed or not and such a committee must include enviornmentalists to take the public health and environmental considerations in mind. The matter cannot just be left to technical people. Mr Agarwal said that ideally speaking the best oxygenate that we should be using is ethanol and in fact that is what the US is moving towards. India too is a major sugar producer and therefore should not have much problems in using ethanol as an oxygenate.
Indian scientists have considerable information on the impact on emissions by using ethanol.
Mr Agarwal also pointed that it is high time that the Ministry of Environment changes assessment procedures to assess environmental impact. At the moment the ministry only has a procedure called Environmental Impact Assessment under which the environmental impact of plants is assessed. This is a site-based assessment. But with economic growth taking place new products are coming into the market which could be extremely polluting even if the production site is clean, and be a major killer. For example, the automobile industry has calmly come up with diesel cars without any assessment by the government of the impact of diesel vehicles.