August 12: Petroleum transport entrepreneurs have once again announced their protest programmes. Prior to this, the transport entrepreneurs had launched a protest programme four months ago but had withdrawn their strike following an understanding with the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC).

However, a recent board meeting of the Petroleum Transport Entrepreneurs Federation on Wednesday decided to launch phase-wise protests if the agreement is not implemented by the NOC.

President of the federation Khageshwar Bohara says that they were forced to relaunch protest programmes after the NOC failed to implement the agreement reached four months ago.

The federation has warned that they will not entertain advanced bookings from August 18 if the transportation fare is not increased within August 16.

The transport entrepreneurs will then launch other protest programmes, reads a statement issued by the federation.

The federation said that the NOC had written a letter on July 31 pledging to increase the transportation fare but it has not done anything concrete to this end. The federation has been saying that they will not be able to operate tankers to transport petroleum products at the current rate. They have been demanding revision of transportation fare due to the rise in prices of petroleum products.

An expert group formed by the NOC some months ago had also suggested increasing the transportation fare. The study group has suggested increasing the fare by 3 to 16 percent depending on the route. However, the NOC leadership said that the suggestions made by the expert group was excessively high and handed over the report to Pulchowk Engineering College for further study.