About 50,000 trucks that use logistics platform BlackBuck can now access discounted diesel at 25,000 Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) outlets using XtraPower prepaid cards. Many of these outlets offer parking, restroom and other facilities, which the truckers can use.

BlackBuck seeks to bring truckers and merchants on a common online platform, allowing them to find the best rates for transport of goods across cities.

Besides discounted fuel in 16 outlets on national highways, truckers can access boom-barrier protected parking facilities with resting, subsidised food and bathing facilities. There will be 100 such outlets — called XtraPower Sarai — up and running in a year.

Currently, only one IOC outlet in Haryana has this facility including safe and secure parking, while 15 others offer resting lounges, open bath etc.

Untapped market Through this tie-up, IOC gets an opportunity to tap into the relatively unorganised segment of small truckers — truckers who own up to five trucks, constituting 85 per cent of the market — who till now were buying fuel from wherever they found it convenient, according to a company official.

“The truckers will get 2 per cent discount on the fuel bill. A truck typically moves 300 km a day with an average fuel consumption of 3.5 km per litre. So, a trucker consumes about 80-100 litres of fuel a day,” BlackBuck co-founder Chanakya Hridaya told BusinessLine . This translates into ₹1,600-2,000 savings on fuel a day per trucker.

“Here, the truckers will enter the parking area through an access card, a move that will result in securing cargo for trucks. There will be security guards and CCTVs for added security. Such outlets which offer everything will be called XtraPower Sarai,” explained the official. 

IOC dealers who wish to upgrade existing facilities to such an outlet would need an investment of around ₹2 crore per outlet. Developing a new one would require around ₹20 crore.

“This year we plan to upgrade 50 outlets to offer everything apart from the parking facilities, mainly because space is not available immediately at these locations. Also 50 more outlets will offer everything including safe parking facilities. Of these, eight are going to be developed ground up (new ones),” shared the official. 

For the truckers, this means doing away with the need to carry large amounts of cash in trucks. “Usually, customers pay advance to truckers before the journey in cash, of which about 40 per cent is used for fuel. Now, we collect cash from customers who could be companies from FMCG, chemical, engineering. We transfer the fuel component into the prepaid IOC card, and the remaining into the savings account of truckers,” explained Hridaya.

BlackBuck has 200 corporate customers include HUL, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Reliance, Asian Paints, Bajaj and Samsung. It also counts among its customers some third party logistics companies with a focus on warehousing, including Scorpion Express, Taut Logistics and ToI Logistics.

In the past 15 months, BlackBuck, with funding from Flipkart, Tiger Global and Yuri Milner, has grown to 220 locations and 1,000 people from one location and 30 people.

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