To bring transparency in the fuel distribution network, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is looking at providing high tech automation system to its fuel stations across India. For this, the company is spending an average of Rs 15-20 lakhs for every retail outlet.
In the first phase, it had provided automation systems to 81 retail outlets in the western region of Maharashtra and it has plans to cover 400 more outlets by the end of March 2012 all over Maharashtra. The system has become operational from Monday.
Currently, BPCL is having 1091 retail outlets in Maharashtra with monthly volumes of 78000 kilo litres of petrol and 1,78,000 of diesel. It has a market share of 43 per cent and 37 per cent of petrol and diesel respectively.
This new facility includes auto tank gauging (ATG) which enables product receipt and stock management no manual intervention, multi product dispensers, seamless integration of fuelling with billing, cash memo that carries vehicle number and attendant's name, card details, rate and volume, amount, authorisation and time of fuelling.
Currently, retail outlets having a sale of greater than 200 kilo litre per month are being upgraded with automation.
Speaking on this, K H Subramanian, general manager retail western region, BPCL, "BPCL has installed automation system to the retail out lets across India considering the consumer's needs and convenience. We have plans to cover a total 500 service stations by end of March 2012. The system is equipped with sms or e-mail generation facility to customer on fuelled quantity and remote access to retail outlets operations thereby making the system transparent and robust. These outlets will be on 24 hours surveillance through high quality CCTV installed on the premises and operations at outlets can be monitored from anywhere, anytime."
He added that these outlets will leverage automation to customer under a no paper no dispensing (NPND) and auto ticket printing mode.
In Pune district, 58 retail outlets out of 70 (83 per cent) of the retail outlets are being automated and 87 per cent sales are done through automated retail outlets.
