With a steep cut in the import of petroleum products from India, the government has decided to distribute fuel to public and emergency vehicles only. With this decision made my Commerce Ministry and Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), private vehicles and taxis will be barred from fuel distribution.

“With the current reserve we are unable to distribute fuel to private vehicles,” said NOC spokesperson Mukunda Prasad Ghimire, “We have decided to grant fuel only to hospital and emergency services.

Meanwhile, NOC has said it has stopped distributing fuel from its Thankot depot and will sell petroleum only through refuelling stations after being criticised for failing to ensure fair distribution of petroleum products.

With NOC’s new plan, public vehicles would be provided with 15-20 litres of petroleum based on their registration numbers (even or odd). While a microbus/jeep would get 15 litres, mini buses would get 20 litres and big buses 30 litres of fuel every alternate day.

Two- and four-wheelers belonging to media persons would be provided 3 litres and 10 litres of petrol every Friday.