Oil Firms May Soon Supply All Fuels Right Up to Your Home!

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi-led Central government may soon accord permission for oil companies to embark on home delivery of petrol and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has dropped hints towards this possibility in the Centre’s bid to help vehicle users during the ongoing nationwide lockdown.

The minister inaugurated 56 new CNG stations across 11 states on Friday. Speaking on this occasion, the Union minister said that the government ‘would like to expand the same for petrol and LNG, lust like diesel. “People would be able to get the home delivery of the fuel in future,” Pradhan was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Way back in 2018, Indian Oil Corporation, country’s largest fuel retail PSU, initiated the home delivery of diesel using mobile dispensers in a few select cities across the country. Despite being the world’s third biggest purchaser of crude oil, India still had to gulp down a 70 per cent fall in fuel consumption in April, all thanks to the nationwide lockdown.

Before the petroleum ministry could think of this measure, Indian Startup Repos Energy, an entity supported by Ratan Tata’s Tata Group, also revealed its plans to supply fuel at the doorsteps of consumers using mobile petrol pumps. The Tata Group-backed company has earlier in a statement said that it aims to produce 3,200 mobile petrol pumps in the present financial year.

In other measures, the petroleum minister also hinted at the possibility of a revamp of gas stations so as to provide all kinds of fuel like CNG, LNG and PNG, all at one place. This is however likely to take quite some time to translate into reality in view of the fact that gas stations supplying natural gas for vehicles often see long queues.

(With agencies' inputs)