KATHMANDU (AFP) – - How to get hold of petrol is one of the hottest topics in Nepal ever since its sole supplier, India, began refusing to sell fuel on credit a year ago to Nepal’s state-run fuel monopoly, which owes it millions of dollars.
The ensuing shortage has led to rationing and pump queues of several kilometres.
The three men standing by their cars as night fell peered into the little white taxi, and recognising the Nepali cab driver as a friend, hissed, “Need petrol? We know where you can get some.”
The driver slowed, and said he would return later for the few litres of black market petrol that would save him from losing an entire day queueing.
“I parked the truck in this line at 7:00 pm yesterday,” said food transporter Krishna Bahadur Shrestha, 40, who was number 56 in a queue for diesel.
“They will only give me 10 or 15 litres. I won’t be able to run my truck for even a full day on that.”
- This is a pretty serious event that is happening all over the world. The rich countries don’t have such issues because there are no subsidies and the people simply pay higher prices. Now that the oil companies are getting nervous about buying oil on credit and refused to sell oil on lower subsidised prices.
The Nepali government continues to subsidise pump prices for fear of widespread protests in the country, still navigating a two-year-old peace process that saw Maoist rebels lay down their arms after a decade of war.
The policy has led the Nepal Oil Corporation into a sink-hole of almost 230 million dollars of debt — and counting.
This will not end in a happy ending if the price of the pump don’t go up together with crude oil but the fear of protest made the government worry about their next election instead. From the look of this, they might not be calming the public and even risk a serious shortage of fuel.
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