The Indian government is set to launch E85 fuel, an 80-85% ethanol-blended variant of petrol, on Friday, as an effort to scale flex fuel mobility in the country.Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri will participate in the launch ceremony in New Delhi.This moves comes at a time when automakers including Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp have introduced flex-fuel variants of their best-selling WagonR and Splendor vehicles.Puri had earlier emphaised that flex-fuel mobility must also make economic sense for consumers. Citing studies, the minister indicated that if E85 fuel is priced appropriately lower compared to E20, consumers can recover the cost of the vehicle within approximately three years through fuel savings achieved due to the lower price of fuel.Also read: Maruti Suzuki launches India's first flex-fuel car, bets on biofuels to boost energy securityThe Indian government is actively examining supportive policy frameworks to accelerate affordable adoption.Amid widespread concerns, NITI Aayog officially classified ethanol-based Flex-Fuel Vehicles (FFVs), including vehicles running on high ethanol blends such as E85, as zero-emission vehicles. "E85 fuel also produces near-zero particulate matter (PM) emissions, making flex-fuel vehicles a promising solution for addressing the country’s growing air pollution challenge," the government said in a release on Thursday.At the launch event of Maruti Suzuki's flex-fuel vehicle, Puri outlined government's roadmap for creating a nationwide flex-fuel ecosystem, under which he said, E85 has been identified as the mono-fuel standard for Flex-Fuel Vehicles under BIS specifications.The plan has proposed an initial roll out of 50–100 FFV-ready fuel retail outlets in the Delhi-NCR and Mumbai–Pune–Nagpur corridors, expanding to nearly 500 outlets by end of this year and approximately 5,000 outlets across major cities by end-2027.Puri asserted that the government is also working on supportive measures such as pricing support, road tax concessions, availability of E85 testing fuel, special identifiers for FFVs and retail outlets, consumer awareness initiatives, and development of storage and dispensing infrastructure to increase adoption."This is not merely a transition in fuel, but it is the creation of a complete ecosystem for cleaner mobility, stronger energy security, and greater self-reliance," the oil minister said.