Roundup: Petroleum price hike sparks protests across Nepal

Nepal witnessed a massive protest throughout the country against the hike in petroleum price in the second consecutive day on Sunday.

The Nepali government raised the price of petroleum products on Friday with the aim of reducing the soaring losses of Nepali Oil Corporation (NOC), the state-owned oil monopolist supplier in Nepal.

College students and local residents have been protesting from early Saturday till Sunday by burning tires and chanting anti- price-hike slogans in the capital city of Kathmandu and major cities of the country including Pokhara, another major city in western Nepal.

The transport service has remained standstill and people are walking along the road to reach their destinations.

A student leader Bal Kumar Upadhyaya, of All Nepal Free Student Union told Xinhua Sunday morning that they will continue protest until the decision of hiking the petroleum price is withdrawn.

"We are going to announce other protest programs today against the price rise if the government does not withdraw this decision immediately," Udpadhyaya added.

The government lifted the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene by 25, 11 and 23 percent respectively in their wholesale prices in order to cut the heavy loss being incurred by NOC.

The NOC is incurring a loss of about 850 million Nepali rupees (12.14 million U.S. dollar) monthly and its liability to pay Indian Oil Corporation that supplies petroleum products to NOC, and to Nepali commercial banks currently stands at around 12 billion rupees (171.42 million dollar).

The latest price hike is expected to reduce the NOC's loss to 210 million rupees (3 million dollars), according to a NOC press statement.

Despite the soaring prices of petroleum products in the international market, the Nepali government and political parties remain reluctant to hike the petroleum price due to political cost they have to pay for that decision.

Against this backdrop, the ruling Seven Party Alliance (SPA) including Nepali Congress that led the present government and other parties asked the government to rethink about the decision of increasing price of petroleum products.

Amidst an intense pressure to rethink about the decision, Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies of Nepal Hridayash Tripathi said the ministry was ready to revise the petroleum products' price downward if a collective agreement was reached on price reduction.

Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat, however, claimed that Nepal should have faced the stoppage of petroleum supply if the price was not hiked.

International donors like World Bank and the International Monitory Fund have also been pressuring the Nepali government to increase the petroleum price as per the international price if it wants to receive the development funds from them.

Source: Xinhua