A standard DG rental contract includes the acoustic-enclosed generator set, delivery and positioning, commissioning, and scheduled B-check maintenance every 250–300 running hours — while diesel, DEF, consumables at abnormal load and statutory approvals sit in the hirer’s scope unless the work order says otherwise. That sentence settles most of it. The rest of this guide walks a rental work order line by line, using our own published terms as the specimen.
TL;DR
- In the rent: acoustic-enclosed set, delivery, positioning and cabling, commissioning, and B-checks every 250–300 running hours
- Hirer’s scope: diesel, DEF, consumables at abnormal load, statutory approvals — unless the work order says otherwise
- Diesel stays in the hirer’s custody and control; fuel-inclusive can be quoted for short deployments
- Deposit: typically two months’ rent, refundable after reconciliation. GST: 18% under SAC 997319
- Breakdown response typically 4–6 hours; on newer work orders, a standby set at the vendor’s cost beyond 24 hours down
- Every commercial term goes on paper before dispatch — the checklist below tests any vendor against that bar
What the rent covers — and what it never covers
A rental quote arrives as one number a month. The contract behind it is a scope split, and the split — not the number — is where offers actually differ. Here is the standard structure, from our own published rental terms:
| Line item | Whose scope |
|---|---|
| Acoustic-enclosed, CPCB-compliant DG set | In the rent |
| Delivery, positioning and cabling | In the rent |
| Commissioning and load test at handover | In the rent |
| B-check maintenance every 250–300 running hours | In the rent |
| Breakdown response, typically 4–6 hours | In the rent |
| Standby set if downtime exceeds 24 hours | In the rent, on newer work orders |
| Diesel | Hirer |
| DEF (where the set uses it) | Hirer |
| Consumables at abnormal load | Hirer |
| Statutory approvals | Hirer, unless the work order says otherwise |
| Operator | Optional line, priced into the work order |
Two lines deserve a second look. The maintenance line is the big divider between rental offers: a B-check is the full scheduled service — oil, filters, coolant — and on our terms it falls due every 250–300 running hours at no extra cost. A rental without maintenance inside is a machine on a truck; servicing becomes your problem, or a billable surprise.
The other is “consumables at abnormal load”. Under the standard terms, consumables used under abnormal load sit with the hirer unless the work order says otherwise. The question worth settling before signing — with us or anyone — is what counts as abnormal on your site. Get the answer into the work order, not into a phone call.
Who pays for diesel?
You do, in the standard structure — and that is the answer that keeps the rest of the bill honest.
Diesel is the operating cost that scales with your running hours, and your running hours are the one thing the rental company doesn’t control. So the standard arrangement keeps fuel in the hirer’s custody and control: you buy it, you store it, you log it. When fuel rides inside the vendor’s invoice instead, every litre becomes a negotiation — how much was consumed, at what price, who verified the reading. When the diesel is yours, the rent is the rent. That is the billing-clean argument, and it is why we default to it.
There is a genuine exception. For short deployments — an event, a plant shutdown, commissioning support — managing fuel for a week can be more nuisance than control, and a fuel-inclusive arrangement can be quoted where it is operationally simpler. The same custody logic covers DEF on sets that carry an SCR system: a consumable that tracks your running, so it sits in your scope.
If a vendor proposes fuel-inclusive pricing on a long deployment, ask how consumption is metered, how diesel price changes pass through, and who certifies the billed figure. Those are exactly the disputes hirer custody makes impossible.
Deposit, GST and the billing rhythm
The deposit. Typically two months’ rent, refundable at contract close after reconciliation — final invoices settled, anything the work order provides for accounted, then the refund. Ask any vendor what specifically triggers the refund. “Refundable” without a stated process is a promise, not a term.
GST. DG rental attracts GST at 18% under SAC 997319. Your finance team will ask for the SAC code on the first invoice; now you can tell them before they ask.
The rhythm. Billing is monthly, in advance. Long-term deployments typically run 12-month terms with a lock-in of six to twelve months and one month’s notice; short-term hire is quoted case by case against fleet availability. What you will not find here is a monthly rate — rent depends on kVA, term, city and the set’s CPCB stage, and indicative bands live on the capacity pages of the fleet ladder.
The operator question
The standard deployment is unmanned. The set runs on an AMF panel — auto mains failure — which starts the generator when mains drops and hands back when it returns, with nobody standing beside the canopy. That is what keeps the standard rent lean.
An operator enters where the site demands one: manned installations, metro-city night operations, or a client safety rule that requires a person on the machine. Then the operator is provided and priced into the work order — a visible line, not an assumption. When you compare quotes, ask which kind each one is; operator-included against unmanned is not a like-for-like comparison.
The SLA: what happens when it breaks down
A rental that isn’t running isn’t a rental, so the service level is as much a part of the contract as the rent. On our published terms: breakdown response is typically 4–6 hours, through a zone-wise service network that escalates to the director. Newer work orders carry a further clause — if downtime exceeds 24 hours, a standby DG set is placed on site at our cost. The uptime commitment is 95%, with its conditions stated in the work order.
The numbers matter less than the medium. An SLA that lives in a sales call does not exist. Whatever response time a vendor quotes, the only version that counts is the one printed in the work order with its conditions attached.
What writing these work orders has taught us
The rule we run the rental desk on: every commercial term on paper before dispatch — rent, term, deposit, SLA, fuel scope, B-check cadence. In our experience, the expensive disagreements in rental are almost never about the machine. They are about words spoken but not written — a “we’ll sort the diesel out”, a verbal response time, a deposit refund with no stated process.
Two more lessons from the enquiry side. Quote comparisons go wrong at the rating before they go wrong at the price: one vendor’s 500 kVA is a prime rating and another’s is standby, and those are different machines — ask every vendor to state the ISO 8528-1 rating basis. And the emission stage now belongs in the enquiry, not the fine print: CPCB IV+ compliant units are available at a premium over legacy CPCB II sets, and if your site sits in NCR or a critically-polluted zone where enforcement is active, the stage decides which units qualify at all.
Twelve questions to ask any rental vendor
Ours is not the only honest way to write a rental contract — but any honest contract can answer these twelve questions in writing. Use them on every quote, including ours:
- What exactly does the rent include — and is scheduled maintenance inside, at a stated hour interval?
- Who supplies diesel, and whose custody and control does it stay in?
- Is the quoted kVA a prime or standby rating?
- Which emission stage is the offered unit — CPCB IV+ or earlier?
- How much is the security deposit, and what triggers its refund?
- Is GST extra, and which SAC code will the invoice carry?
- What is the breakdown-response commitment, in hours?
- What happens if the set is down beyond 24 hours?
- Is an operator included, optional or assumed — and what does that line cost?
- What are the lock-in and notice periods?
- Who is responsible for statutory approvals at the site?
- Will every answer above appear in the work order before the truck moves?
A vendor who answers all twelve on paper is worth dealing with, whoever they are. A vendor who answers them vaguely has also told you something.
Getting a work order of your own
The full published terms — inclusions, deposit, SLA, the standby clause — live on the DG rental service page, and the fleet ladder spans 5–1250 kVA, Cummins-led, with specifications on each capacity page. Send the load and the site city on WhatsApp: in deployed cities — Pune, Mumbai, Bhiwandi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Nagpur among them — a set up to 250 kVA typically arrives, cabled and commissioned, within 24–72 hours of work-order confirmation. Every term in this article will be on paper before the truck moves. That is the point of it.
Sources: every commercial term cited — the inclusion scope, fuel custody structure, deposit and reconciliation, GST 18% under SAC 997319, billing and lock-in structure, operator terms, the 4–6 hour breakdown response, the 24-hour standby clause and the 95% uptime commitment — is from Power Solutions’ published standard rental terms on the DG rental service page; the work order for a specific deployment governs. B-check scope per the maintenance-checks guide; rating definitions per the ISO 8528 ratings guide. No rental rates appear in this article; indicative bands live on the capacity pages.