Fuel Monitoring System in Surendranagar: Diesel Records for Salt Trucks and Cotton Loads

A fuel monitoring system in Surendranagar has to cope with distance and open land. The district sits in the Saurashtra and Kathiawar belt, with the flat salt desert of the Little Rann of Kutch along its northern edge. Surendranagar city, joined with Wadhwan, is the headquarters, and Ahmedabad, Botad, Rajkot, Morbi, Kutch and Patan surround it. Seasonal rivers like the Bhogavo cross a plain of farms and scrub.

Two freight streams dominate. The Ahmedabad to Rajkot highway runs through Limbdi and Chotila with cotton, ceramic, machinery and passenger traffic. A second stream turns north-west from Dhrangadhra through Halvad towards Maliya and the Kutch ports, carrying salt, chemicals and bulk goods. Surendranagar Junction, on the line between Viramgam and Rajkot, adds short feeder trips to the railhead.

The Rann edge is its own world. Salt is worked on pans around Kharaghoda, Patdi and Dasada, and trucks wait there and at weighbridges before heading to Kandla, Mundra and inland buyers, mostly in the cooler months after the pans dry. Tracks are rough, workshops few and signal uneven. Inland, cotton fills ginning units and mandi yards from autumn into winter, groundnut adds to the load, and wheat, cumin and gram move early in the year.

Industry and visitors add the rest. Thangadh's ceramic units and Dhrangadhra's building stone send out trucks through the year. Chotila's Chamunda temple on its hill, the Tarnetar fair near Thangadh and the wild ass sanctuary bring buses and hired vehicles on peak days. School buses run from Surendranagar, Wadhwan and Limbdi. Across all of these, a dated level record per vehicle is how an owner sees where the diesel went.

The salt truck's tank is a steel box on the chassis with its filler on top. On fitting day the executive makes an opening in the upper face, lowers a probe into the diesel and cuts it so that its end sits just above the floor. Sealed in, the probe stays there for good. It has no float and no moving part, which suits a vehicle that spends its days on rough Rann tracks.

Capacitance does the measuring. As diesel covers more or less of the probe, its electrical value changes, and the head of the sensor turns that into a level. The level is passed to the Teltonika FMB920 in the cabin, by cable for Omnicomm or by Bluetooth for Mercetech and Mielta Fantom. The tracker attaches the truck's position, speed and ignition, and sends the package over an Airtel SIM to Trakzee Premium.

In Wadhwan, the owner sees the truck as a marker with a fuel graph beside it. The graph sits high as the truck leaves the pans, declines through the long run towards the ports, rises sharply at a refill marked with time and place, and falls in a step if diesel leaves the tank while the truck is parked, which also sends an alert. The same readings make daily and per-trip mileage and consumption reports.

Calibration is the last piece. Before leaving, the executive matches the probe's raw values against known quantities in that tank, so the graph reads in litres. A new tank, a weld or a removed probe means calibration must be redone; tell BearTech before such work. Where signal fails near the Rann, the live view pauses until the truck is back in coverage.

The salt truck to Kandla. A truck loads at the pans near Kharaghoda, waits at the weighbridge, then runs through Halvad and Maliya towards the port. It fills once on the way. The graph shows the queue as a flat stretch, the run as a steady slope, and the fill as a jump with time and place. The owner matches the jump against the slip next morning; they agree, and the trip is filed.

The cotton pickup at the ginning unit. In November a pickup makes three short trips a day from villages near Limbdi to a ginning yard, each ending in a long queue. Its litres per trip look high for the distance, and the record shows why: engine running in the queue. The owner raises the waiting time with the ginning unit instead of questioning the driver. Over the season, that queue figure becomes useful when choosing which ginning unit to deal with.

The ceramic truck from Thangadh. A truck carries tiles and sanitaryware to Ahmedabad twice a week. Its litres per round trip stay in a narrow range until one week they rise. The trip record shows a detour around road works near Limbdi, which explains the change. The figure returns to normal once the road reopens.

The school bus at Tarnetar time. A bus normally runs a fixed village loop from Wadhwan. During the Tarnetar fair it is hired for extra trips near Thangadh. The record separates the extra diesel those trips used from the usual school runs, so the operator can bill the hire fairly and plan next year's fair rates. Back on the school loop, the figures settle again.

BearTech quotes about 95% accuracy on a sound tank after proper fitting and calibration. That makes the figure a practical guide for managing vehicles; it is not a laboratory instrument. Four factors move it: the slope where the vehicle stands, sloshing while it moves, the tank's shape and condition, and the quality of the diesel. Surendranagar's mix of highway and Rann track shows all four. Expecting these effects avoids needless alarm.

On the Ahmedabad to Rajkot highway the graph stays steady. On salt-pan tracks and rough farm roads, diesel swings and the moving line wobbles. A truck parked on the soft, uneven edge of a pan, or a pickup tilted in a ginning yard, shows a different level from the same tank on flat ground. These shifts come from tilt and motion; they do not mean diesel has left the tank.

Tanks and fuel matter too. An older truck's tank may be dented or patched, and diesel with water or sediment reads differently. In the monsoon, low tracks near the Rann turn soft or flooded, adding splashing and tilt. Signal is a separate matter: towards the Rann, Airtel coverage can thin, and the live view pauses until the truck is back in range. A gap in the graph is a network pause, not lost fuel.

The rule is straightforward. Judge refills and falls from readings taken with the vehicle parked on level ground, before and after the event, and treat the line on the move as approximate. Batteries in wireless sensors are consumables outside the warranty. And because BearTech does not offer returns, refunds or exchanges, share the tank details and a photo before ordering.

BearTech has no setup in Surendranagar; it works from Bhopal and has been in vehicle tracking since 2014. For an order here, an executive travels from Bhopal to wherever your vehicles stand, whether a salt contractor's yard near Kharaghoda, a transport compound in Wadhwan, a ginning yard in Limbdi or a ceramic unit's lot in Thangadh. You pay his travel and stay, and BearTech names that amount before you order.

The kit arrives in about 2 working days, stock permitting, and the fitting date is fixed around your season. Before the salt dispatch rush or the cotton peak is easier than the middle of it. On the day, park each vehicle so the top of its tank can be reached, clean the salt and dust from around the filler, keep the registration papers and your earlier tank photo handy, and have someone there who knows the routes and who should receive alerts.

The executive inspects the tank and chooses the probe length, cuts the opening in the upper face, trims the probe to depth and seals it. The FMB920 is wired to the vehicle and paired with the sensor by cable or Bluetooth. Calibration then turns readings into litres, the vehicle is added to your Trakzee Premium account, and you see the live level on your phone before he leaves.

Bring as many vehicles as possible to one place for one visit, so one journey covers them all; trucks can be fitted in turns while the rest keep running. Payment is collected in full at fitting, and outside Bhopal a token-amount COD booking is also possible. After fitting, call the support line, 99937 84035, for help with logins and alerts.