As a respite for fuel crisis, the government is selling firewood for cooking purposes through its own depots in the Capital starting Sunday.

The firewood will be available for purchase at two depots of Timber Corporation of Nepal in Gaushala and Balkumari at Rs15 per kilogram. According to the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, a family will be allowed to purchase a maximum of 100kg firewood.

Ministry Spokesperson Krishna Prasad Acharya said they have already brought firewood to the Valley and the first batch will be on sale starting Sunday. TCN, an entity under the ministry, has already transported 10 trucks of firewood to Kathmandu from Bara.

Entire country, especially the Kathmandu valley, is reeling under severe scarcity of cooking gas, petrol, diesel and kerosene after India refused to let tankers carrying fuel to enter Nepal. As such, firewood has become an option left for Nepalis to cook food.

The government could not sell firewood to Valley residents from Friday as per its plan owing to Tihar holidays. In total, the Forest Ministry has ordered 300 logs of firewood each measuring 500 cubic feet. According to TCN General Manager Birendra Yadav, it will take about 215 trucks to carry all the firewood. After the first 10 trucks from Bara, Yadav said the remaining wood will be hauled from Nawalparasi.

Several organisations and traders had already begun selling firewood in Kathmandu after the onset of fuel shortage. While firewood was selling at upward of Rs16 per kilo, the government’s decision to sell at the nominal price of Rs15 per kg comes as a respite for consumers. However, the first batch of firewood will not be enough for all and they will have to wait till other batches of firewood arrive.

According to the 2011 national census, 64 percent of total households in the country use firewood as the usual fuel for cooking, followed by LPG with 21 percent. In the Valley alone, the daily demand for LPG is 50,000 cylinders while the supply has come to almost complete halt for several weeks now. For the lag, the Federation of Community Forest Users’ Nepal, an umbrella organisation of around 18,000 forest users groups across the country, estimates that around

five million cubic feet of firewood can be collected from community forests across

the country.