Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd has forayed into packaged drinking water segment through a technological partnership with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology.

CSIR-IICT has shared its patented membrane technology for production and their unit at the IICT campus which has enabled HPCL to introduce its branded packaged drinking water to be sold under the brand name Reminero.

Reminero is re-mineralised nano-filtered packaged drinking water containing sufficient quantity of sodium, magnesium, calcium and other minerals. The packaged water will be currently sold in PET bottles of 500 ml and one litre in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

J Ramaswamy, Director, Finance, HPCL, said “This initiative, which is first of a kind among oil PSUs in the country, is aimed at making it comfortable for its customers who come visiting to its massive network of retail outlets and touch points. This marks a complete shift by offering the most basic necessity of pure, safe and healthy packaged drinking water.”

GSV Prasad, Executive Director of HPCL Retail, said “While initially Reminero will be sold through its network of 46 outlets in Hyderabad, as we scale up its potential, it will be offered across more than 22,000 retail and other touch points of HPCL.”

CSIR-IICT started a pilot unit at its facility for internal use and since then more than 50 units have been set up in various parts, many of them in schools, hospitals and even rural areas, NV Satyanarayana, Scientis, and Head, Bioengineering and Fossil Fuels, Division of CSIR-IICT, said.

S Sridhar, Principal Scientist, CSIR-IICT, said, “The acidic content, which is harmful for consumption is brought down using the membrane technology developed by IICT. The water thus produced, be it using river water or ground water, is good for health as it contains minerals useful for people.”

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