Ratan Tata-backed startup Repos Energy to manufacture, sell around 3,200 mobile petrol pumps in FY21

Pune-based energy distribution startup, Repos Energy plans to manufacture and sell around 3,200 mobile petrol pumps in the current financial year.

Repos Energy was started three years ago and funded by Ratan Tata. It is an app-based company that picks up diesel from certified petrol pumps and delivers it at the customer’’s doorstep in a mobile petrol pump.

Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Group, came on board of the startup as a mentor along with Tata Motors,

In a statement, the company said it also plans to get on board over 1,200 operators from across the country during FY 2020-21.

“At present India needs over a lakh of fuel stations across the country to meet the demand. However, this wouldn’’t be feasible due to the availability of land and the huge costs involved. There are over 55,000 fuel stations which are not sufficient,” says Chetan Walunj, co-founder of Repos Energy, IANS said.

Led by IoT, a Repose Petrol Pump can deliver fuel to the end customers through a simple mobile application, the company said, adding that it is integrated with cloud technology to get real-time updates.

“It has highly sensitive censors called ATG to get accurate quality and quantity of diesel. Enabled with GPS and Geo-fencing, this mobile petrol pump can be monitored in real-time, to ensure the utmost transparency,” it said.

Co-founder Aditi Bhosale Walunj said: “We have a fleet of 320 vehicles out of which over 100 are fully operational and working to deliver fuel across India. But now, our target is to build and sell 3,200 RMPPs in one year.”

Jump in diesel supply demand amid lockdown

The ongoing lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also resulted in the shutdown of fuel stations, is turning out to be a boon for Ratan Tata-backed Repos Energy as demand has zoomed sizeably.

The Pune-based startup which specialises in supplying diesel at the doorstep for commercial users has seen daily demand go up to 15,000 litres from the earlier average of 10,000 litres, a senior official said, at the end of March, PTI said.

The hospitals segment is leading the demand, while waste-management depots, industries, infrastructure projects and housing societies are also helping.

“In the current situation hospitals are in the need of constant back-ups for crucial functions like the ventilators and intensive care units (ICU); and to ensure the smooth operations, we have deployed two mobile petrol pumps which are making trips to major and small hospitals and serving as a lifeline in times of lockdown,” Walunj said.

He said that besides hospitals, waste management depots of civic bodies, entities under essential services, some vertical of Pune Municipal Corporation, National Information Centre (NIC), and residential societies are also being catered in the current situation.

“In the normal course, we never used to cater to the housing societies as their requirement was less, but considering the current situation where petrol pumps are instructed not to entertain the common public and frequent power outage it is becoming difficult for them to procure diesel to function their diesel generator sets. We are taking orders from residential societies for even 50 litres,” he said.

There is enough stock to be provided for the next 20 days of the lockdown period for now, he said.

He also said that besides Pune, the company is providing services in 15 to 20 cities which include Kolkata, Siliguri in West Bengal, Bhilwara, Jhalawar, Kota in Rajasthan, Nagpur and Jalna in Maharashtra and Ankleshwar in Gujarat