Govt engaged social media influencers to promote Ethanol-blended petrol (E20): What’s at play?

With the nationwide rollout of 20% ethanol-blended petrol (E20) becoming a matter debate in various circles, a new trend was seen on social media, in which influencers with millions of followers were making and posting videos enumerating the benefits of ethanol-blended petrol.

The points made in these videos are similar — such as the environmental benefits of ethanol-blended petrol and how farmers can profit from it. This indicates a coordinated effort to amplify the government’s message. Several prominent influencers, such as Abhishek Malhan alias Fukra Insaan, Mahesh Keshwala alias Thagesh, Indrani Vishwas, Tayyab Alam, Geetanjali Chauhan, Neha Nagar, Akanksha Ahuja, Varsha Dahiya, Ankur Agarwal, Rajan Arora, Arun Kushwah alias Chhote Mian, RJ Naveed, RJ Praveen, RJ Karishma, RJ Shonali, have been a part of this campaign.

Some of these videos can be watched here:

Alt News noticed that many of these videos had views in lakhs and crores. For example, Abhishek Malhan’s video has been viewed more than 1.15 crore times, while Ankur Agarwal’s video had 40 lakh views. Similarly, Rajan Arora’s video has 31 lakh and RJ Karishma’s video more than 19 lakh views. Below we have presented the data of 30 influencers who have participated in the publicity to give the readers a sense of the reach of this campaign.

As mentioned earlier, in our analysis of videos posted on the same topic by influencers with millions of followers, we found several common points being made, such as how it can reduce pollution and benefit farmers. And all the influencers used the same hashtags. Apart from this, all these videos were posted using Instagram’s collab feature. The collaborators included official accounts of Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the Union petroleum and natural gas ministry, BPCL, HPCL and IOCL.

Readers should note that for the collab feature to work, the post has to be approved by the respective user. In this case, all these reels were approved for collab by the official accounts of the aforementioned minister, Union ministry and the oil companies.

While influencers like Arun Kushwah and RJ Karishma used hashtags to indicate that their posts were advertorial, and Neha Nagar used Instagram’s ‘Paid Partnership’ label, most influencers did not disclose in their captions or videos that their video was part of an advertisement campaign.

The Race Monkey: Influencer who Said No to Being a Part of the Campaign

Something noteworthy came to light when we closely looked at the influencer page, The Race Monkey. This Instagram account that shares content related to car, bike, automotive reviews, etc., posted a screenshot of a WhatsApp message from a social media influencer agency. In the message, the agency inquires about a possible brand collaboration with them regarding 20% ethanol-blended petrol. The sender of the message asks for @theracemonkey’s professional charges for posting content based on the subject. According to The Race Monkey’s Instagram post, they declined the offer.

In an Instagram story, the user also questioned the notion that the use of ethanol was beneficial. “The common man is bearing the cost of damage to the vehicle and the pocket. As a consumer driven automobile portal, we said a big No to spreading misinformation”, they said.

Speaking to Alt News, Ishaan Bhardwaj, who is also the editor of the portal, TheRaceMonkey.com, said, “On the 14th of August, I received a phone call from a woman named Simran who said she worked with an agency called Hextech Media, which was a social media influencer agency doing paid campaigns for various brands. She told me about this campaign on E20 Fuel and how it benefitted the farmers and the environment. I asked her to share the details on message to which she was a little hesitant but later on she did. After reading through the campaign, I was clear that this was to mislead people into believing that E20 was good for the vehicles sold in India by giving references of farmer welfare and environmental protection… Further, I called them to check on their budget on the campaign to understand how big the numbers were. They asked me to give me a number and I said Rs.20 lakh, to which they said they won’t be able to give more than 15 lakh…”

Bhardwaj, who is considered an expert in matters related to the automobile industry, said, “There have been internal communications among the Automotive Components Manufacturers Association (ACMA), the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas and the Union ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) to make E20 fuel mandatory across the country.”

Explaining the entire scheme of things further, he stated, “In 2020, manufacturers globally had announced that they would switch to fully electric mobility by 2030. But then the pandemic happened. Because of the world-wide economic decline, electric car sales slumped and lately has reduced to a few thousands a year, model on model. Electric cars depreciate to half their value in 2-3 years too so it becomes a less economically viable purchase for anyone. And majority of the consumers for EVs is the middle class. Tis also contributed to sales going down considerably. ”

This, Bhardwaj explained, led to auto manufacturers re-think their strategy and go back to largely manufacturing petrol and diesel cars. “In India however, there was a major challenge. With no subsidies and high investments made by car and component manufacturers to setup their EV ecosystem, it became challenging for them to keep up with low sales month-on-month. Hence, earlier this month, the push for making E20 fuel compulsory across the country. Not as an option, but as a mandate for all fuel pump owners to follow.”

Elaborating on who benefits from this, Bhardwaj further said, “This push or an unnecessary compulsion has been done for the boost that component manufacturers will get, since original equipment manufacturers will now launch kits that will cost a bomb to convert old cars to E20 compliant ones. Union MoRTH minister Nitin Gadkari gets a huge chunk of margins since most of the refineries and corn farming is done under his family’s name. So, it’s a win-win situation of the government and ACMA which will be squeezing a huge chunk of money out of people’s pockets.”

Alt News reached out to Hextech Media regarding this matter. This article will be updated once we get a response.

Motorcycle Trails

Another influencer named Motorcycle Trails also shared a similar experience on Instagram. He was also approached by a social media influencer agency to create content on E20 ethanol-blended petrol and was asked about his professional charge for creating content related to that campaign.

In an Instagram post, Motorcycle Trails says that he has explained in a video on YouTube why ethanol blended petrol is harmful for old vehicles. He refused the offer saying that he would not be a part of any such collaboration with any agency that would try to change or influence his views on this issue.

We have reached out to Motorcycle Trails for more information. This article will be updated if we get a response from him.

Content Matches Govt Press Release Language

It is interesting to note that there is a lot of similarity between the official government communication on ethanol-blended petrol and the brand collab messages received from influencer agencies.

For instance, a message sent to The Race Monkey via WhatsApp from the agency briefly shared the idea of ​​the brand collab. The message uses the phrase “RESPONSE TO CONCERNS ON 20% BLENDING OF ETHANOL IN PETROL AND BEYOND” . This phrase was also the title of the press release issued by the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas on August 12 in which they responded to the concerns of the people on blending 20 percent ethanol in petrol. The same phrase was present with minor changes in the message received by Motorcycle Trails from the agency. This indicates that the government is systematically using influencer marketing to communicate its agenda to the public and set the desired narrative.

Questions Remain

The use of influencers to communicate messages to the public and effectively set a narrative also marks a shift from traditional advertising and public relations strategies. Some key questions that remain to be answered are as follows:  

What is the likely budget of the campaign?

Although the total budget of this entire campaign has not been made public yet, The Race Monkey, which has has 1.5 lakh followers, was offered Rs 15 lakh for a post by the social media influencer agency. From this, one can have an idea on the total budget for the campaign, given many influencers with crores of followers have made videos on this. 

Is ethanol-blended petrol a new development?

In 2014, only 1.5% ethanol was added to petrol but it reached 20% by 2025. On 24 July 2025, Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri claimed that ethanol production had increased from 38 crore liters in 2014 to 661.1 crore liters by June 2025. This has helped India save about Rs 1.36 lakh crore in foreign currency by reducing its dependence on imported crude oil.

In 2018, Nitin Gadkari had claimed that ethanol blending could reduce the price of petrol to Rs 55 per liter and diesel to Rs 50 per liter. He argued that ethanol made from sugarcane and corn was cheaper than petrol and this would benefit consumers. As on the date of this article being published, a retail consumer in Kolkata has to shell out Rs 105.41 per litre for petrol, Rs 92.02 for diesel.