The number of vehicles plying on the road has gone down sharply and the talks meditated by the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) and local administration to end the strike have failed repeatedly.
- Workers cannot be made permanent: Dealers
- We will intensify our strike: Workers
- Efforts are on to end crisis: Administration
All Nepal Petroleum Workers Union enforced closure of 450 dealers operating in the region, demanding the dealers to permanently appoint workers who have worked for 240 days.
Transporters said the strike has affected their business badly. “Fuel we had on stock too has dried up. Now no passenger buses will ply on the road,” an official of Koshi Zonal Bus Entrepreneurs Association (KZBEA) told myrepublica.com.
“Due to fuel shortage, 75 percent of vehicles are already stranding in garage.”
According to a statistics, some 7,000 passenger vehicles operate daily in Koshi zone alone.
Meanwhile, talks held till late Friday between the workers and dealer entrepreneurs have ended inconclusive.
The Union officials held firm on their stance of issuing permanent appointment letter to the workers. They, however, agreed to review other 16 demands, if the dealers fulfilled the demand to permanently appoint workers.
Dealer operators, however, said that they were rather ready to compromise on other issues but not on making the workers permanent. “How can we make our staff permanent when we ourselves have to renew the petrol pump operating license every year?” wondered Mukunda Neupane, general secretary of Koshi Petroleum Dealers´ Association.
President of agitating workers union Govinda Rijal said they would not allow refilling stations to operate until and unless their demands were addressed by the dealers.
According to the Union, some 1,150 petroleum workers work with different petroleum dealers in the region. Statistics of NOC shows that the region consumes some 150 KL of petrol, 440 KL of diesel and 24 KL of kerosene every day.
Apart from shutting down the refilling stations, the workers are staging sit-in protest on the main gate of NOC´s regional office. This has affected both sales and import of the fossil fuel through Biratnagar.
“We are making leaving no stone unturned to end the deadlock by mediating the talks between the dealers and workers,” said Shashi Shekhar Shrestha, chief district officer of Morang.
However, as both the employers and employees are firm on their stance, officials do not see achievement of breakthrough anytime soon.
Given the situation, a source stated that the District Administration Office has made up a mind to forcefully open the retailing pumps by mobilizing security forces. However, the workers´ union affiliated to the Maoist has warned that it will strongly protest if the police intervened in their peaceful protest.
Rijal informed myrepublica.com that the union has further decided to intensify its protest.
However, the workers have agreed to allow distribution of fuel to media and emergency vehicles like ambulance and fire engines. Though they have said that they will announce fixed time for the distribution of fuel to those vehicles on Saturday, no such notice has been issued till late on the day.
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