CPC to automate filling stations
 

by Hiran H. Senewiratne

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) is planning to set up fully and semi automated 24 hours open filling stations islandwide following the success of their pilot project in their Tissamaharamaya station.

Initially, the CPC will focus on 40 of its filling stations including five in Colombo and many CPC dealer stations to upgrade into semi and fully automated stations in the country, CPC Deputy General Manager Planning and Development Ranjith Wickramasinghe said.

The CPC will invest Rs 200 million for this project. At present nearly five dealers have expressed their interest to convert into the semi and fully automated service stations, he said.

He said that the CPC would provide interest free loans for its dealers i.e. fully automated station at Rs. 1- 1.2 million per dealer and semi automated Rs. 500,000 per dealer and these diesel and petrol stations are connected to debit and credit card facilities. Sampath Bank is the main partner for this operation.

From this Fleet Card system the customer will automatically generate a receipt at the filling stations and all detail records will register with the Bank. This being a co-branded product with the CPC and Sampath Bank, each person could get a card for the fleet or each card for each vehicle, he said.

The CPC has 132 stations including North and East and 323 dealer owned stations in the country now. The software and hardware providers for this system is Acal Systems (Pvt) Ltd, a Lankan company.