Odisha: Smart fuelling plan for fire tenders

BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha fire services directorate has switched to a smart way of filling fuel in their vehicles. They have decided to avail the Indian Oil’s Xtrapower fleet card system, doing away with the existing manual practice of maintaining indent books to monitor the logistics.
Currently, drivers of the vehicles carry the fuel indent books and receipts with signature of their higher authorities to get their tanks filled.The existing system requires a lot of paperwork and manpower to follow up the bills and clear them with respective fuel pumps.
“To bring in more transparency under the government’s 5T initiative, we will use the Indian Oil’s fleet card system for our vehicles. This is a technologically advanced system to monitor our fuel consumption. In the first phase, the vehicles of fire stations in Khurda and Cuttack districts would be covered,” director general of fire service Santosh Upadhyay said after holding a meeting with senior officials of IOCL in Cuttack on Friday.
Currently, each of the 341 fire stations has three vehicles. Monthly fuel bill of all vehicles comes to around Rs 75 lakh. “Under the fleet card system, we will stand to gain. The oil company will give us some points to avail discounts each time we refuel our vehicles. We can cash in on those points. This may result in reduction in the overall fuel bill,” Upadhyay said. IOCL will give 0.50 point redemptions for purchase of petrol oil lubricant. Besides, the drivers of fire tenders will be insured up to Rs 5 lakh.
In the meeting, Upadhyay took stock of the fire-fighting systems and preparedness of the IOCL’s refineries and depots in dealing with chemical-related hazards. He laid stress on an effective response system through integrated institutional arrangements, state-of-the-art forecasting and early warning systems, safe communication system, rapid evacuation, quick deployment of specialized response forces and coordination among them.