They also obstructed imports of petroleum products from Raxaul on the day. As a result, NOC did not receive fuel from the largest importing point, through which Nepal fulfills two-thirds of its total oil demand. [break]
The strike, however, did not affect retail level supplies in the Kathmandu Valley as refilling stations that took more than regular volume of fuel on Tuesday continued to sell fuel at normal pace. Some of the pumps along the major highways outside the Valley, however, reeled under shortage, according to Nepal Petroleum Dealers´ Association (NPDA).
“In Kathmandu, we (dealers) had enough stock to maintain supplies for today. Hence, the strike did not impact fuel availability much,” said Linendra Pradhan of the association. Keeping the strike into account, NOC had distributed around 500 KL of petrol and 550 KL of diesel on Tuesday.
But Pradhan stated that almost all of the dealers have run out of stock by Wednesday evening. “If NOC did not pump out normal volume of fuel during the second half of Thursday and Friday as promised, serious crisis will creep in the market,” he told myrepublica.com.
NPDA urged the NOC management and the trade unions to sort out their problems soon.
But talks between top NOC managers, board members and leaders of agitating trade unions -- NOC Employees Association and NOC Employees Organization -- held till late night had failed to make breakthrough. The talks were going on when this news was filed.
During the talks held till late in the evening at the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS), NOC board members had urged the unions to drop the demand for bonus, promising genuine hearings on other 12 demands.
But NOC staffers said their demand of bonus from profit that NOC earned in 2008/09 was legitimate, even though the state-owned fuel monopolist has huge accumulated loss and loans to repay, and refused to budge.
They did not buy board members´ statement that union´s bonus claims contradicted with prudential financial norms and direction of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).
Apart from bonus, the trade unions also stood firm on their demand that sought the management to revoke actions taken against Amlekhgunj depot staffers, who inflicted some Rs 30 million in loss to NOC in the name of technical loss.
They also urged the management to revise acceptable technical loss limit for depots, depute technical staffs in the depots, provide insurance coverage to the staffs and stop imports from Barauni as that raises technical loss to NOC due to higher temperature variation than from Raxaul.
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milan@myrepublica.com
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