The Ministry of Petroleum is working towards creating an e-commerce platform in which customers can order diesel online and get delivery at their doorstep, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and officials in his Ministry said on Wednesday.
“We have decided to allow all petroleum products for e-commerce,” Mr. Pradhan said at the India Mobile Congress. “We had said doorstep delivery would be possible.”
The Minister was referring to a consultative committee meeting that took place in April in Srinagar, where the idea of doorstep delivery of fuel was first mooted as a viable model to increase digital transactions as well as shorten the queues at petrol pumps.
Tweet after meeting
“After the consultative committee meeting, the Minister had even tweeted about this e-commerce model,” a senior official in the Petroleum Ministry said on condition of anonymity.
“At the time, the plan was to take this forward with regard to petrol and diesel. One of the key challenges was safety, since petrol is highly inflammable. Recently, Indian Oil Corporation came up with diesel as the fuel for this model. It is not as flammable, and takes a lot of effort to catch fire,” ” the official said.
The government wasl working on how to extend this to petrol while maintaining strict safety norms.
“Petrol and diesel were the main ones, since the delivery of other oils such as engine oils can be easily done using e-commerce,” the official explained. At the moment, only LPG is delivered at home, while consumers have to visit the retail outlets for vehicular fuels such as petrol, diesel, CNG, and also engine oils.
