KATHMANDU: The Government of Nepal is in the last leg of preparations for the regional summit for Asia-Pacific nations being held through November 30 to December 3.

One among such preparations is the re-introduction of the recurring Odd-Even traffic rule which came into effect today.

In a bid to ease traffic congestion to facilitate movement of VIPs and VVIPs attending the summit, the authorities have announced that vehicle-movement during the summit would be based on the odd and even number plate system, effective from November 29 till December 3.

However, this rule shall exempt blue and red plates (ministry vehicles), white plates (government vehicles) and blue plates (diplomatic missions' vehicles) from its sphere of influence while red plates (private vehicles) and more 'interestingly' black plates (public vehicles) cannot escape its paws.

Likewise, emergency service vehicles and school-children carriers (schools were closed during SAARC and BIMSTEC summits), will ply normally.

The Kathmandu residents have not taken too kindly to this 'system' and have expressed their displeasure over the citizens' suffering owing to (mis)management (in)capabilities of concerned state mechanisms on social media.

This is not the first time that the Odd-Even rule has come into effect in the capital. Every high-level foreign-dignitary's visit is accompanied by the rule which first, perhaps, caught attention of the general public during the 18th SAARC Summit held in Kathmandu in 2014.

Recently, the same rule was applied during the fourth BIMSTEC Summit.

(Fortunately, public holiday has not been announced this time around, which has sort of become a norm during summits and VVIP visits.)

As such, today, the first day of implementation (imposition) of 'nth' chapter of Odd-Even rule, happens to be an 'odd-day'. Maybe a less-polluted (unsure about congestion) Thursday but very much an Odd-Day.

See you on Even-Day!