Kathmandu, May 9:

Kathmandu valley once again experienced a shortage of petroleum products on Wednesday, as the state-run petroleum supplier, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) cut supply by as much as 60 per cent.

NOC has stopped distributing petrol to private pumps from yesterday, while it has been supplying only 40 per cent of diesel from its Thankot depot. Most private petrol pumps went dry today and only few are distributing diesel, said Dhruva Shrestha, secretary of Nepal Petroleum Dealers’ Association.

He informed that all private pumps would run dry by Thursday, if NOC continues to curtail supply. “Only few petrol pumps will be supplying diesel from tomorrow onwards,” Shrestha said.

NOC spokesperson Ichha Bikram Thapa has the same reason to offer for the problem, which is, ‘NOC has not been able to pay its dues to its sole supplier Indian Oil Corporation which stands at about Rs 5.96 billion’.

“Besides our stock is low too. That is why the corporation has tightened supply,” he said, adding that the current stock will meet the demand for only two days.

Thapa claimed that the ‘supply has been maintained through public petrol pumps’ run by Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Sajha and cooperatives. Today’s problem surfaced just a week after the government apprised political parties about the current petroleum supply situation and NOC losses incurred over the past five years.