Entrepreneurs said that the traditional oil mills are being displaced due to increasing use of oil of different modern brands and also for lack of promotion of market for the oil produced by these traditional oil mills.
Some years ago, tradition oil mills, known as Kol in Nepali, were in operation almost at each street in Bhaktapur but now not even one traditional oil mill is found in operation.
Ram Bahadur Manandhar of Golmadhi said that earlier 15 traditional oil mills were in operation at Dattatraya, Golmadhi and Tokhacho of the Bhaktapur Municipality but now only five mills remained.
Manandhar said earlier they used to sell oil after extracting oil from the tradition oil mills. He said they used to collect mustard seeds from different places for crushing it at the traditional mills but now they have adopted other occupations after modern brand oil displaced the oil produced at the traditional oil mills.
He added there are hardly six traditional oil mills operating in Bhaktapur, including one each at Gatthaghar, Bakhaha and Balkot.
The oil extracted from the traditional oil mills has been displaced as it is expensive compared to modern brand oils. The price of one liter of pure mustard oil produced at traditional oil mill is Rs. 220 whereas the price of modern brand oil is Rs. 180 per litre.
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