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Kathmandu: Nepal raised the price of fuel yesterday to beat a shortage and cut losses at the state firm that has a monopoly in the sector, sparking protest marches and calls for the increase to be reversed.
Officials said the price rises ranged from 5.6 per cent for diesel to as much as 22.22 per cent for cooking gas.
They said the increases were needed to maintain supplies, which were disrupted after India's state-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) reduced supplies over non-payment of bills.
"We were selling oil at a loss. It is a harsh reality and there was no alternative to the increase," said Purushottam Ojha, chairman of the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), which has a monopoly over oil imports and distribution.
Reversal demand
Local TV and online news reports said student and consumer activists were marching to demand that the price rises be reversed.
Former Maoist rebels, who quit the interim government last month, criticised the increase.
"The government must readjust the prices on the basis of a general consensus and effectively control the commission, corruption and leakage in petroleum products," the Maoists said in a statement.
Ojha said the NOC, whose accumulated loss stood at about 11 billion Nepali rupees (Dh643 million), owed 4.8 billion rupees to the IOC, the sole supplier of petroleum products to impoverished Nepal, which imports about 800,000 tonnes of oil annually.
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