Kathmandu, February 23

Agitating petroleum tanker operators have halted their protest programmes temporarily for one month.

The decision to discontinue the protest came from fuel tanker operators after a meeting between Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) officials and tanker operators today ended with a commitment from NOC to amend the Petroleum Products Transportation Bylaw.

A section of fuel tanker operators close to the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT) had been staging a protest since the last one week demanding an amendment in some provisions in the new bylaw like tanker operators requiring to maintain a minimum fleet size of five tankers.

While they had completely halted fuel supply last Friday, they had threatened to halt regular supply of petroleum products from Monday if their demand was not addressed.

Tanker operators have also demanded NOC to revisit the provision in the new bylaw which states that transporters will be fined up to two times the worth of stolen petroleum products and transporters and government officials caught stealing petroleum products will be suspended.

“Disruption in fuel supply is not acceptable for any reason. However, we will take the demand of tanker operators to NOC board and the board will decide on their demand accordingly,” said Sitaram Pokhrel, director of NOC.

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