What's fuelling petrol shortage‚ wonder motorists

KATHMANDU:

Motorists and two-wheeler drivers, who have to queue up in front of petrol pumps in scorching heat, are wondering why the shortage of petrol in Kathmandu Valley has continued to prolong.

“After waiting for two hours all I got was three litres of petrol,” complained Mahesh Thapa, 21, of New Baneshwor, as he came out of Bagbazar-based Chunilal Hari Narayan Oil Store, which unlike any other fuel stations had not pulled down its shutters. “People are suffering and the government seems to be doing nothing,” said a frustrated Thapa.

People like Thapa are miffed at the government, as they have to leave everything else at bay and queue up for hours to purchase rationed petrol.

The Valley had started witnessing shortage of petrol on April 15 after Indian Oil Corporation slashed fuel supply to Nepal Oil Corporation, citing delay in clearance of outstanding dues.

But on Sunday NOC claimed to have started receiving regular supply from IOC after it pledged to clear half of the dues within a few days. At that time NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Ghimire had told The Himalayan Times: “The situation will return to normal in a day or two as IOC has already raised the supply.”

Four days have passed since then — and NOC claims to have paid Rs 5.82 billion to IOC a few days ago — but the situation has not improved.

“Over the past five days, NOC has been supplying on an average 416,800 litres of petrol per day (as against the daily demand of around 350,000 litres). We don’t know why the situation has not improved,” said Ghimire.

President of the Nepal Petroleum Dealers’ National Association Lilendra Pradhan, on the other hand, claims that petrol pumps have been distributing whatever being supplied by NOC.

If that’s the case, where is all the fuel going?

Neither NOC nor the dealers’ association has a definite answer to this question, though Pradhan argued that the demand might have gone up lately because of panic buying.

“To monitor the market, the Department of Commerce and Supply Management, and Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology have to coordinate and form a team. Because of lack of such a team, we have not been able to monitor the market situation,” Director at Department of Commerce and Supply Management Hari Narayan Belbase said.

What are the authorities concerned waiting for? They owe an explanation to those waiting in queues.

Source: THT