Oil marketing companies like Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation will soon go the e-commerce way as the government plans home delivery of petrol and diesel in a bid to increase digital transactions in the sector.
Sources close to the matter said Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan presented the idea at a meeting of the consultative committee of members of Parliament in Srinagar on 21 April.
“This would increase the number of digital transactions and would become more comfortable for consumers. Besides, it would cut long queues at fuel stations as the same would be delivered at consumers’ doorsteps,” an industry source said.
According to the plan, consumers can book fuel online, which will be delivered directly to their houses by the oil marketing companies.
At present, about 38,128 retail outlets in the country have point-of-sale machines and over 86 per cent have digital infrastructure.
After demonetisation, oil marketing companies are giving a 0.75 per cent discount on cashless transactions, while over 72,000 e-wallets have also been activated.
“This is one step ahead in our road map, as it may give consumers additional benefits of digital transactions. However, details of the rollout are yet to be finalised,” the source added.
Oil marketing companies have conducted about 35,000 consumer awareness campaigns to promote digital transactions since the old high-value notes seized to be a legal tender.
Pradhan indicated that daily cashless transactions have increased to Rs 400 crore per day from Rs 150 crore per day in November.
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