Federation of Nepal Petroleum Tankers Operators (FNPTO) said Sunday that tankers operated by them would stop ferrying fuel between Raxaul and Amlekhgunj from Tuesday as a part of their first phase of protest. [break]
They decided to stop transportation of fuel stating that the decision would make them suffer huge loss.
Submitting a memorandum at the Amlekhgunj depot of NOC, FNPTO warned that petrol tankers will not ply on Barauni-Amlekhgunj route from Tuesday. It has also warned of stopping supplies across the country if NOC did not withdraw its decision by Thursday.
Siddhilal Shrestha, vice-president of FNPTO, said though they were not in favor of stopping the operation of tankers on the eve of Dashain festival, they support the protest announced by the federation´s Birgunj office.
“We will try our best to resolve the problem at the earliest and avert the shortage of petroleum products in the market,” said Shrestha.
NOC officials decided to stop issuing Product Delivery Order to tanker operators to suspend the supply of petroleum products from India´s Barauni refinery after a report unveiled that almost all tankers plying on Barauni-Amlekhgunj route were wrongly calibrated and had been delivering as much as 250 liters less fuel on each consignment of 25 kiloliters.
The report had also started that the state-owned fuel monopolist suffered a loss of 20 million liters of fuel worth Rs 1.3 million over a month between mid-August to mid-September due to the faulty calibration.
A total of 135 tankers are operating on the Barauni-Amlekhagunj route.
Sources at NOC said Indian calibrators are responsible for the delivery of less quantity of fuel in comparison to the payment made to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) - the sole supplier of petroleum products to Nepal.
Meanwhile, NOC has decided to take up the issue with the IOC that delivers fuel only to the tankers whose height and width measurement is marked by the concerned Indian authority.
In the past, calibration of tankers used to be done by the Indian Bureau of Standard. However, in recent years, IOC has authorized private firms and individuals to carry out the job, encouraging malpractices in the trade of petroleum products between the two countries.
NOC employees have long been demanding that the management stop import from Barauni as it has been inflicting additional technical losses as well.
Digamber Jha, managing director of NOC, said the tanker operators, who are responsible for oil loss, have no ground to launch strike. “We can´t allow tankers to deliver the petroleum products by overlooking huge loss that NOC is facing,” Jha said.
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