“Some 154 tankers have already crossed the strike-prone and sensitive areas and started reaching Kathmandu from Saturday evening,” said Ganesh Dhakal, joint secretary at the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies.
Talking to myrepublica.com, he elaborated that over 100 truckloads of food grain and an additional 50 truckloads of other essential commodities were moving by the Tribhuvan and Prithvi Highways towards Kathmandu.
The government has taken such an extreme measure after it failed to hammer out an agreement with the Tharuhat and other agitating groups. The agitating groups have brought transport to a grinding halt in the Tarai districts since the last 11 days, creating shortages of petrol and other commodities in the Valley.
On government’s instructions, the regional administration had imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday in Bara and Chitwan to enable the movement of fuel and foodstuff.
Though curfew was not imposed in Parsa and Makawanpur, the security agencies had provided heavy security to the transporters.
With this endeavor, the government has brought 700 KL of aviation fuel, 600 KL of petrol, 650 KL of diesel and 100 KL of kerosene into the Valley. Likewise, it brought in more than 1,500 tons of food grain and other essential commodities.
“It will help us to restore normal supplies in a few days,” said an NOC official, who elaborated that NOC would, however, rework its distribution strategy depending on how frequently the government takes such steps.
Amid fast depletion of stocks, mainly petrol stocks, NOC is presently supplying fuel through 10 institutional dealers operated by the army, police, the armed police force and Sajha cooperatives.
Even though it has stopped issuing fuel from its Thankot depot to some 110 private dealers operating in the Valley, the corporation is issuing fuel to dealers willing to receive their supply from Amlekhgunj. “Such a strategy has been adopted in a bid to enable NOC to pump more fuel into the market, rather than just engaging in the transfer of stock,” said the official.
Meanwhile, the government has instructed the regional administration to take similar steps in the next few days to bring in more supplies, in case talks between the government and the agitating groups continue to falter.
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