Repos Energy sees 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. Its co-founder Chetan Walunj said the hospitals segment is leading the demand, while waste-management depots, industries, infrastructure projects and housing societies are also helping. 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.

"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.

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