No fuel for private vehicles

As fuel crisis deepens further, the government has decided to not distribute petrol and diesel for private vehicles from Thursday.

A meeting of Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and Department of Transport Management (DoTM) on Wednesday decided to distribute fuel only for public vehicles and emergency service. Even trucks and tippers will not get fuel.

After India imposed an unofficial blockade against Nepal last week, the NOC had been distributing limited amount of stock fuel. People are queuing up for hours, sometimes even for two days, to buy fuel.

The NOC says it will run out of stock fuel in little more than a week if it continues to sell petrol and diesel for private cars and motorcycles.

Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has already stopped providing Aviation Turbine Fuel for international airlines.

India has denied imposing a blockade against Nepal, and Indian security personnel even escorted around 70 Nepali tankers laden with fuel and vegetables to Sunauli border post on Wednesday. But more than 1100 tankers carrying essential commodities are still stranded across the Sunauli border.

Thousands of Nepali containers are stuck across various border points. Nepali trucks have not been allowed to pass through even those border points where there are no protests at all.

The Madhesi Front, an alliance of four Madhesi parties, has also been staging sit-in protests at various border points, enabling India to claim that the blockade is because of political unrest within Nepal.

The Front has objected to boundaries of plains provinces, omission of the word 'proportional' and demarcation of election constituencies.