Kathmandu, April 17

The Cabinet today decided that any institution related to transportation sector could not be registered or renewed at district administration offices.

The decision follows transporters’ announcement of a series of strikes to protest the government’s move to discourage prevailing syndicate in the transportation sector. The protest programmes include halting public transportation services across the country and indefinite strike. The Department of Transport Management has been acting against the transport syndicate since the past few weeks by issuing vehicle route permits to new transport companies and is preparing to scrap all transport committees and associations.

Such moves from the government to end transport syndicate has worried the transporters who had been maintaining their monopoly in the domestic transportation industry.

“The Cabinet took a decision to this effect considering that transportation routes are public property and that it is the government which should issue the route permit, not transport institutions,” said Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Prasad Baskota, who is also the government’s spokesperson.

The Cabinet also approved the Detailed Project Report of Outer Ring Road project and decided to acquire land along the 6.6-km stretch in Satungal area and hand it over to Kathmandu Valley Development Authority. The Cabinet also decided to increase the customs duty on sugar imports to 30 per cent from 15 per cent. The minimum purchase price of sugarcane has also been increased to Rs 536.56 per quintal from around Rs 531.

The Cabinet also set the ceiling for the factory price of sugar at Rs 70 per kg. “This is to ensure that the market price of sugar does not increase with the rise in customs duty,” said Baskota. “This way, the concerns of both the farmers and sugar mills are addressed, and the consumers too will not have to face high sugar price.”