Ministry of petroleum is planning for the delivery of fuel at door step.
Why door step delivery is is promoted?
Home delivery is reason for the success of e-commerce firms.
It saves times for the consumers.
The infrastructure investment of the firms can be reduced.
What are the issues with the home delivery of fuels?
Enforcing safety measures would be difficult with door delivery facilities. e.g Ban on lighting a cigarette at a petrol pump is easy, but not the same in the home-delivery environment.
LPG cylinder adulteration is not as easy, but it is relatively simple to do this in fuels like petrol and diesel.
Regular checks by agencies for enforcing anti-adulteration is easier at petrol pumps and that much more difficult for home-delivery unit.
Hoarding of petroleum products to influence pricing is possible.
Smuggling of fuels from states where it is cheaper is possible.
How these issues can be addressed?
Only Special delivery vans with special pilfer-proof locks be used to ensure there is no tampering with the fuel.
Agencies can ensure anti-adulterations by regular checks with the fuel delivery vans.
Aadhaar card can be made mandatory for fuel delivery, which will avoid the fuel hoarding.
Implementation of GST on petroleum products will maintain the fuel prices same across the nation, so that smuggling can be avoided.
