Protest against petroleum price hike leaves Nepali capital tense

The Nepali capital Saturday remained tense with street protests throughout the valley against Friday's decision to increase the price of petroleum products.

The capital saw very little traffic Saturday with protesters burning tyres and felling trees at the major thoroughfares.

There have also been incidents of protesters vandalizing vehicles and petrol pumps.

The Nepali government on Friday decided to raise the prices of petroleum products effective from Friday evening.

According to spokesperson of the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) Mukunda Dhungel, the price of petrol has been fixed at 80 Nepali rupees (1.14 U.S. dollars) per liter, diesel and kerosene 56 rupees (0.8 dollar) per liter for the dealers to be distributed from the Kathmandu depot.

As per the decision, the price of cooking gas has gone up by 100 Nepali rupees (1.4 U.S. dollars) to 1,000 rupees (14.28 dollars) per cylinder.

According to the Petroleum Dealers' Association, it will disclose the retail prices soon after calculating the transportation charges.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Supplies has clarified that the NOC, after suffering a daily loss of 30 million rupees (428,571.4 dollars) reaching a whopping 1.1 billion rupees (15.7 million dollars) was stuck in a position of not being able to import petroleum products any more. Hence the ministry went for a price hike.

Source: Xinhua