Bharat Petroleum begins self-service at petrol pump in Pune under ‘Atmanirbhar’ campaign

Business models across industries have had to adapt to the ‘new normal’ as the world begins to learn and live with the coronavirus until a vaccine is discovered. If a business does not have strong distancing and safety standards, it perhaps does not have customers. In its bid to make fuel filling stations safer, Bharat Petroleum (BP) has introduced a new self-service system under the ‘Atmanirbhar’ campaign. The new service takes the need for an attendant to fill fuel out of the picture, promoting social distancing.

A customer can operate the fuel pump in one of the three ways – fill by quantity, for which the customer must enter the desired volume (in litres) of petrol or diesel, fill by cost, which lets the customer pick an amount (in Rs) of how much worth of fuel they want, and lastly fill to full (automatic cut-off at tank full).

Now that there is no attendant at this fuel station, there is no unnecessary contact between the customer and the attendant. Also, there are sanitisation measures in place as well.

So far, only one station has been updated with the new system. The BP fuel filling station located near the Regional Transport Office in Pune is the first one to adopt this system. Eventually, we might see more stations using this method to curb the spread of the virus. While this is the first such fuel filler in India, countries like the US, UK and Europe have been following the system for decades now.