India already is the 3rd largest oil consumer in the world after USA and China. Looking at the channel oil consumption trends it is expected that India’s oil demands will double in next decade or so. This substantiates that in near future India is going to be one of the key drivers of the global oil economy. India fulfils almost all its oil demand by imports and it is expected that this will push India further into trade deficit conundrum.
To alleviate India’s oil woes different eminent institutes have been conducting research in the nation’s oil consumption.
It is estimated that a total of 5-10% of total fuel consumption is wasted through different inefficient practices.
In order to get a clearer picture it is only wise to have a look at the industry wise consumption and practices.
Of the total consumption, about 70% is consumed by the transport industry(28% by private cars and rest by transport vehicles), 13% is consumed by Agriculture and allied sectors and about 9% is consumed by industries such as infrastructure, construction and others.
The fuel losses incurred in different industries needs to be looked through the prism of problems persisting in these industries.
TRANSPORT
According to a recent study conducted by CSIR-CRRI, the fuel losses on the roads due to unnecessary fuel wastage are in tune with hundreds of crores every single day.Most of these losses are incurred at busy intersections and traffic signals from idle sitting vehicles. Besides the transport industry is mired with corrupt practices like pilferage,fuel adulteration and spillages. Vehicles in bad shape consume more fuel than well maintained vehicles. All the transport vehicles procure Diesel from the stationary fuel stations causing a huge traffic stress at the fuel stations and adding to the harmful emissions. This not only causes monetary losses pushing the business costs higher but also harm the environment by adding into pollution.
Transportation industry is plagued with the problems of spillage, pilferage and fuel adulteration.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Almost all the projects in infrastructure industry have very inefficient fuel procurement and storage practices which results in pilferage and spillages. inefficient storage practices at construction site are also a huge safety hazard. The tracking of the fuel consumption is almost always incorrect which leads to flawed planning and in turns incurs more losses. These losses result in the loss of productivity for businesses. Considerable amount of losses can be cut out by introducing few small yet game changing fuel management practices.
Biggest problem for construction and infra projects is procurement and storage of diesel.
IT, HOSPITALS
Keeping in mind the sensitivity around the necessity of the uninterrupted fuel supply in IT firms and hospital, it is often seen that in these industries the purchasing managers usually oversubscribe the power backups without understanding the true consumption. A lot of times fuel wastage is condoned and neglected, these losses adding up for every single day can have a huge bearing on these industries.
HOSPITALITY AND EVENTS
Owing to a lot of habitual and careless practices hospitality and events industry contribute a lot to overall fuel losses. Often the DG sets used in these industry are not well looked after, they are inefficient and consume more fuel. Most of the times they are run at 20-25% of their full capacity which reduces their efficiency and incurs huge fuel losses.
Underestimation of technological solutions and lack of pro activity has resulted in the usage of obsolete fuel management practices across all the industries.
As a part of solution better use of latest technology and taking on little more responsibility towards environment and sustainable productivity, it will in turn help the businesses in saving billions in fuel management and environment for future.