Bill for private players in petroleum business soon

No bonus for NOC staffer

Secretary at the Ministry of Supplies Purushottam Ojha said that the ministry will reintroduce a Bill to involve private sector in the petroleum business in the Parliament soon. Parliament had rejected a similar proposal about three years ago. "The Bill will give a passage to the private players to enter the petro-products business," he added.

"Private sector's participation in the petroleum supply and distribution could help ease the tension between consumers and NOC as every second month the NOC staffers block the petroleum products supply to pressurise the management to hike the price of petroleum products," Ojha said. The country every year imports the petroleum products worth Rs 40 billion and the import is increasing every year as the number of vehicles are increasing.

Speaking about the recent controversy over bonus plan, Ojha, who is also the chairman of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), said that the corporation will not distribute bonus to staff.

"The Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Authority (CIAA) and the government directed the state-oil monopoly not to distribute bonus," he said.

"NOC board, ministry concerned, and the Finance Ministry have to give permission to distribute bonus," he said adding that,"The bonus issue is not being considered at the moment."

The state oil-monopoly had, earlier, decided to distribute about Rs 200 million in bonus to its employees from the profits made in 2008-09. But the corporation has an accumulated loss of over Rs 11 billion. "The management and staff both know that the financial situation of the corporation is not worth bonus-taking," Ojha added.

NOC has been increasing the prices of the petroleum products saying it is in loss. CIAA has directed NOC not to enforce its board decision of distribution of bonus to its staff as it has been incurring accumulated loss.

The NOC staff earlier stopped the distribution of petroleum products for two days after the board revoked the decision of bonus.

Though, the agitating unions claimed that the management was trying to divert public attention from their main demand by focusing only on the bonus issue.

They said their major concern was regarding automation and re-calibration of the depots which will reduce the time and cost involved in fuel supply.

Though their demands were related to improvement of NOC also, the consumers bore the burnt of their strike. "If private players could be introduced the consumers will benefit as they will have an alternative to the oil monopoly," Ojha added.

However, it takes a huge investment to have a parallel structure like NOC to supply the petroleum products.