Simmering anger against ethanol plant comes to a boil in Rajasthan town, farmers from Punjab, UP, Haryana join in

The plant’s management filed a complaint, following which an FIR was registered against 273 people. The Tibbi Circle Officer also filed a suo motu FIR against 108 people. As many as 40 people have been arrested, including two Congress MLAs, former MLAs and farmer leaders.

One of the farmer leaders, Jagjit Singh Jaggi, said another mahapanchayat would be held on December 17 under the banner of the All-India Kisan Sabha and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, where leaders such as Rakesh Tikait are expected, along with protesters from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

On Friday night, however, the protest was “suspended” after the farmers and the administration reached a “consensus” on key issues. The mahapanchayat, though, will proceed as planned, farmers said.

The proposed 40-megawatt grain-based ethanol plant is being constructed by Dune Ethanol Private Limited, a Chandigarh-headquartered company that was incorporated in 2020. While the company says it will support the Centre’s ethanol-blended petrol (EBP) programme, locals, especially farmers, apprehend it will lead to pollution, particularly affecting groundwater.

Company officials were unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts, but government officials assured the plant would not cause pollution.

“The factory was constructed after taking an NOC (no objection certificate) from the pollution control department and the state groundwater department. This is a ‘zero liquid discharge’ factory, where the wastewater, including all the industrial effluent, will be treated, recovered, and reused within the plant. This will leave no discharge to surface water or soil. When the rules are clearly stated and when the company has agreed to it, this issue is being raised for political gain,” said an official who did not wish to be identified.

Political slugfest

Rajasthan ministers Sumit Godara and Jogaram Patel allege the protest was being orchestrated by the government’s political opponents.

“This has been made a political issue by Congress leaders. This is not a farmers’ protest, but something orchestrated by the Opposition, which wants to create tension in the area. The government is ready for dialogue and will consider all legitimate demands, but people should not take the law into their hands,” said Jogaram Patel.

Agriculture Minister Kirodi Lal Meena said on Thursday that the land for the factory was allotted after an MoU was signed during the previous Congress government’s tenure, but the same party’s MLAs are now “leading the farmers in an attack on the plant”.

Meanwhile, MPs Hanuman Beniwal of the RLP and Kuldeep Indora of the Congress raised the issue in the Lok Sabha. During Zero Hour, Beniwal brought up the lathi charge against the “justified farmers’ protest”. Both MPs reiterated the farmers’ concerns about pollution from the factory, the potential loss of fertile land, and the deterioration of water quality.

Long-drawn protest reaches boiling point

Protests against the plant began in September 2024. In July 2025, the protests intensified when the company began constructing a boundary wall. Since November, the factory construction has continued under police protection.

Farmers called a mahapanchayat on December 10, after which around 6,000 people marched towards the factory area with tractors and broke the boundary wall, leading to a clash with police.

Mangesh Chaudhary, a member of Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha, claimed, “We were always ready to sort this issue peacefully. But the government did not send anyone to have a meeting with us, and instead kept threatening us. They arrested our members from their homes in the middle of the night on December 9.”

Authorities have responded by sending around 500 police force and border home guards to secure the area. Police officers from Jaipur have been called in to handle the situation.

ADG (Law and Order) V K Singh told The Indian Express, “We have called forces to keep the situation under control, and we will take adequate measures to maintain the peace. There is nothing to worry about. Farmer leaders are on talking terms with the government. No one is at the factory site, which has been secured.”

Fearing arrest from their homes, many protesters have started living in the Tibbi Gurdwara.

According to the Chief Medical and Health Officer of Hanumagarh, Mangilal Chimpa, 40 people were hospitalised following clashes on December 10, and all of them had been discharged as of Friday.

At the factory, police and other security personnel still stand guard. Home Guards personnel doing eight-hour shifts at the site told The Indian Express that the crowd had turned violent on the day of the clash. “They burnt the vehicles and trashed everything. A lot of gundas were part of the crowd. They took the diesel that was kept to run the generator on the factory premises and poured it on the vehicles and the factory office. An official was also present inside the office, and he had to be rescued from the balcony,” said a Home Guard who does not wish to be named.

Protesters denied the allegations. Farmer leader Rameshwar Verma and protesters claimed that the cars were burnt by factory workers in an effort to put the blame on farmers.

Echoes of Punjab’s Zira protest

Kunal Bishnoi, one of the protesters, said many of them had visited Zira in Punjab’s Ferozepur district, where, years earlier, an ethanol plant was forced to shut down due to protests by locals.

The plant started as a distillery in 2006 and later became an ethanol-producing unit in 2014. Residents of villages around the plant had complained that it polluted the groundwater and land with toxic waste.

The matter was taken up at the National Green Tribunal, where the Central Pollution Control Board submitted a report in 2023, citing severe groundwater and soil contamination in areas surrounding the industrial unit.

“Just like the claims in Tibbi, the ethanol plant in Zira was also ‘zero liquid discharge’… The Zira case is still pending in appeal in NGT,” said Jaskirat Singh, a member of the Public Action Committee that petitioned against the plant.

The factory was shut down in July 2022 amid increasing protests.

In Tibbi, Kunal Bishnoi said, “Tibbi has so much fertile land and groundwater. Our entire farming is done using groundwater. If the factory, just like in Punjab, pollutes the groundwater here, our entire region will be destroyed. We will not let it become Zira.”