Banning use of virgin habitats or ensuring that bio diverse ecosystems are not lost in the pursuit of bio fuels is well intentioned. However such noble objectives are hard to deliver on the ground. Even if all of the American land under cultivation, today, is used to produce bio fuels, US will only be able to meet 6% of its diesel and 12% of its petrol requirements by 2020. Similarly some 40% of Europe's cultivated land would need to go under bio fuel production to meet the 10% replacement target. Clearly diverting this amount of land currently under cultivation in the US and EU to bio-fuels is unlikely and the burden of bio fuel and grain production would hence shift, in part, to the already stressed developing countries. It is noted that even with he current level of diversion of soybean cultivation to corn in the US has doubled its price in a year. Prices of edible oils, wheat, corn, rice and other food commodities have also gone through the roof in recent years as more and more land provides the feedstock for bio fuels. The world food stocks are at a 25-year low. It is pointed out that the high price of food grains does not help the poor and hungry. It is estimated that for every 1% rise in the price of cereals the calorie intake of the poor goes down by half a percent. Thus, instead of eradicating hunger, the world is at a risk of doubling its 800 million hungry by 2030 if it sticks to its plans for growing first generation bio-fuels based on corn, sugarcane, edible oils and newer crops such as sweet sorghum and jatropha. Clearly, the roadmap for promoting first generation bio fuels is a treacherous one. Yet India and the world must pursue bio-fuels for in an energy-starved world, the choice is not which energy form should we pursue but which other energy form can we pursue. This is even more critical for India where Bio Energy is, and shall remain, an important part of its energy mix. The six principals that must guide India and indeed the rest of the world in framing bio fuel policy are: (i) Abolish all subsidies on bio fuels till such time as we establish a truly "green' bio-fuel. (ii) Seek extensive collaborative research, funded through the soft window of multilateral institutions (iii) Fund research on similar terms for second-generation bio-fuels (iv) Remove price and tax distortions among fuels and between end uses of the same inputs. (v) Set up a transparent regulatory regime governing identification classification and allocation of waste and marginal lands, and addressing socio economic issues (vi) Finally, such a regulatory regime will need to develop a new metric for judging how green a bio fuel is by moving away from net energy balance to a measure of net energy service delivered. In conclusion let me say that in my view the right question is not how to make transport fuels greener. Such a question fails to address the problem. The problem is not the liquid fossil fuels. The real problem is the transportation system that is geared, today, to individual transport vehicles fired by liquid fuels that use congested roads, which are simply not broad enough for everyone. What is needed is a transport network consisting of light personalised and mass transit systems powered directly by renewables. Such a system is undergoing extensive testing in Sweden that has decided to enter a brave new world by giving up oil by 2020. Changing life styles, conservation and energy efficiency will take us much further till we develop the miracle green fuel. The writer is principal advisor, energy, government of India. These are his personal views