Why in news?
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.
Source: Financial Express
