After the concept was floated within the team, it was time to talk to Harish Sullad for taking him onboard this mission. He was our COCO operator, selected through an advertisement and an interview process. Then, just two days later, Harish came back shaking his head sideways in disagreement. A week later he resigned from the operatorship of BP Keshawapur. The difficulty for him was the relatively far-off location of the fuel station from the town, due to which women wanted to work only in the general shift, and this would have necessitated male staff for other shifts. Also, it was perceived that women would find this job difficult physically.

"Despite these initial sputters, we were determined to make this concept a reality. So, we propositioned this idea to our existing COCO operators and found that Arif Naik, our BP Kottur operator, was ready to run the fuel station as an additional COCO," shares Mr. Nagaraju.

In the next step, advertisements were published in local newspapers and local TV channels and interviews of 176 prospective candidate out of 470 respondents were conducted. Finally, 23 women candidates were selected for the job. They agreed to work in shifts and were ready to take on the challenges associated with the nature of work. A three-day classroom training and a three-day on-job training was given to them, which included BPCL’s Das Kadam, 10 Commandments for Service Excellence. Keeping these 23 women interested in the idea for about 45 days till the operation of the COCO commenced was another challenge of its kind. Eventually, these determined women chose to overcome all odds and opted in favour of the opportunity they had been offered.

For the women, this was a new kind of work experience and some errors did take place in the first few days, such as forgetting to collect payment after refueling a vehicle. But normalcy was attained in a few days. Pretty soon, an unexpected event surprised us. A night patrol police vehicle arrived at the fuel station and asked the fuel station to be shut down, stating safety of the women as the reason. Mr. Nagaraju spent the next whole day visiting the police station and was able to convince them of total safety of women, which was ensured by security guards and CCTV cameras.

The idea of a BPCL COCO fuel station run by an all-women staff thus became a reality, with awesome results. Despite a new Fuel Station, we have achieved good sales. No wonder this has provided the women a sense of independence, confidence, and pride.

Among several initiatives of Bharat Petroleum, geared to empower women in various ways, this has been a shining example of women empowerment at the grassroots, for others to imitate a genuine tribute by Bharat Petroleum to the spirit, determination and professionalism of women.