“The shortage worsened as we only have emergency stock of petrol at Thankot depot and are not able to distribute fuel from there,” said NOC Spokesperson Mukunda Dhungel.
To end the crisis, Dhungel said NOC has increased imports from Raxaul from Wednesday, arranged Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to make supply on Sunday as well and also diverted additional tankers from Biratnagar to unload the fuel they receive from Barauni at Amlekhgunj to pump out more fuel in the Valley.
NOC that puts the blame of the present spate of shortage to petroleum workers´ strike, tanker drivers´ agitation and traffic jam along the Birgunj-Raxaul import route has decided to place dividers along the route so as to arrange a separate lane for the movement of tankers.
“Traffic office says it will cost about half a million rupee to put the dividers and we have decided to make financial contributions for the same,” said Dhungel, adding that once this arrangement is made, NOC will be able to receive fuel in a predictable way.
With the new initiatives, NOC expects to receive 700 KL of diesel every day at Amlekhgunj and additional 100 KL of petrol from Barauni as well. “This is more than enough to fulfill regular consumption of fuel, but given that the demand has soared sharply in the wake of shortage, we expect the supply situation to ease a bit from Tuesday,” said Dhungel.
As for the normal supplies, consumers would need to wait for another three days.
Distribution records of NOC, meanwhile, show that the fuel monopoly distributed just 164 KL of petrol and 312 KL of diesel in the Valley on Wednesday.
“The supply was just about half of the normal petrol requirement. Volume of diesel pumped out on the day was far less to cut the queues short,” said Linendra Pradhan, Bagmati Zonal President of Nepal Petroleum Dealers Association (NPDA).
Owing to the short supply, long queues persisted in all the petrol pumps distributing fuel Wednesday. Majority of over 100 petrol pumps operating in the Valley remained shut throughout the day. As a result, majority of vehicles running with diesel engine, particularly public transportation, remained off the roads. With fewer vehicles on the road, passengers complained they were forced to travel in heavily crowded vehicles.
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