Many government agencies, NGOs and others joined the propaganda, and huge funds were spent on planting 40 crore saplings of Jatropha Curcus, locally known as ‘Ratanjyot’, on over 1.55 lakh hectares of barren or fallow land during the last three years.

Even before these plants began bearing fruit, Singh stopped using bio-fuel in his official car as he now travels in a bullet-proof vehicle which, officials say, requires petrol or diesel.

As of now, no data about actual survival of saplings and production of seeds is available. Many farmers, who planted Jatropha, are in a fix as trees did not bear fruit at many places.

In tribal Kanker and Rajnandgaon districts, a large number of children fell ill after consuming fruits of Jatropha last year, leading to protests. However, the authorities called these ‘isolated incidents’ but imposed a ban on planting of Ratanjyot saplings near schools.

Problems persisted even at the places where Jatropha plants bore fruits. Various departments, panchayat bodies and other agencies which planted bio-fuel plants on government land in almost all the districts are still waiting for guidelines regarding collection and sale of Jatropha seeds and extraction of bio-fuel from it.

While the state’s bio-fuel programme has failed to achieve the desired result, the state Government claims it could not be expedited without the Central assistance, a national policy on bio-fuel and clear instructions from the Ministry of Environment and Forests regarding planting of Jatropha on degraded forest land.

“Till now, work under bio-fuel programme has been carried out from the state’s funds and funds available under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA),” said S K Shukla, executive director, State Bio-fuel Development Authority, adding steps such as providing subsidies to farmers for taking up Jatropha plantation on barren land could not be taken up at state-level for want of a national policy.

Shukla said the state had already signed MOUs with Indian Oil Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited for forming a joint venture company with Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency to start commercial production. “Efforts are being made to go for commercial production of bio-diesel by 2010,” he added.

Officials claim the state has got tremendous potential for bio-fuel promotion because of the availability of substantial government-owned fallow land, degraded forest land in addition to large tracts of vacant railway land which could be utilised for Jatropha plantation.

The state Government had declared a support price of Rs 650 per quintal and Rs 600 for Karanj seed and Rs 18 per litre of Jatropha and Karanj oil. However, the farmers did not turn up to sell these products at the primary forest cooperative societies of the state Minor Forest Produce Corporation. “It’s because the farmers fetched much better prices for their produce in the open market,” a Government spokesman claimed.