The announcement makes it clear that consumers, reeling under the fuel crunch over the last three weeks, would need to brave the shortage for the next three days also.
Corporation officials said they had to revisit their previous announcement because of the unforeseen closure of Birgunj from Friday to Sunday in the wake of the killing of a transporter there, greatly limiting import activities.
“We have started to receive a reasonable volume of supplies from Monday though,” said Mukunda Dhungel, NOC spokesperson.
He informed Republica that the corporation on Monday received over 1,900 KL of petroleum products loaded Sunday in Raxaul, the largest export outlet to Nepal for Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). NOC was also in the process of receiving an additional 180 KL of petrol and 200 KL diesel from Barauni refinery by late Tuesday.
NOC on Tuesday distributed 277 KL petrol and 387 KL diesel in the Valley from its Thankot depot. It supplied an additional 36 KL each of petrol and diesel to the Valley from Amlekhgunj as well.
The supply for the day nearly totaled the normal daily demand. “We plan to pump out fuel in this volume every day in order to end the shortage by the weekend” said Bhubaneshwor Rajbhandari, chief of NOC Thankot depot.
However, the volume of supplies would depend on the quantity the corporation manages to import over the next few days.
The shortage hit consumers mainly after petroleum workers struck for about a week, affecting distribution of the fuel in the market. The agitation by tanker drivers, which went on for another three days after the petroleum workers withdrew their strike, further stalled fuel imports.
Amid weak imports, the corporation had announced that its petrol stock at Thankot as well as at Amlekhgunj had dropped to emergency-stock levels and cut off supply to the market. This has forced consumers to queue for hours at refilling stations over the last two weeks.
Officials said the corporation, in a bid to end the crisis, requested IOC to supply more fuel from Raxaul and also diverted more tankers operating the Biratnagar-Barauni route to Amlekhgunj-Barauni to bring in more fuel in a consistent flow.
The corporation, which also blames traffic jams along the Birgunj-Raxaul corridor for the supply woe, has requested traffic police to place dividers along the route to arrange a separate lane for the movement of tankers.
For the purpose, it is contributing about half a million rupee to the traffic police. Once this arrangement is made, officials are hopeful of getting adequate fuel in a predictable fashion.
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