Industry Minister Yadav seeks state-owned gas company amid LPG shortage

KATHMANDU: Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Gauri Kumari Yadav has complained of a lack of cooperation from private gas companies amid an ongoing cooking gas shortage in the federal capital.

Speaking at a meeting of the Industry, Commerce, Labour and Consumer Welfare Committee of the House of Representatives, Minister Yadav urged lawmakers to support Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) in establishing a state-owned gas company as a long-term solution to the supply problem.

Minister Yadav told lawmakers that repeated written requests to private liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) suppliers had yielded no results. She said the cooking gas sector should include both private and state-owned companies, adding that NOC must operate its own gas company.

She noted that none of the 15 gas bottling plants currently operating in the country was under NOC control. She said no improvement had been seen despite the ministry repeatedly asking private suppliers to ensure regular distribution.

“If 58 gas companies had dispatched 3,000 cylinders every day to Kathmandu, the federal capital would not have faced such problems. But they did not,” Minister Yadav said.

“Although 48,000 cylinders had been dispatched to Kathmandu on Tuesday alone, only 19,000 cylinders reached the market. Where did the remaining cylinders go? No one knows,” she said.

Minister Yadav further stated that accurate information on the movement of stocks was not being shared. She emphasised that Nepal must become self-sufficient in five essential products: cooking oil, gas, garments, food items and sugar.

The minister also complained of administrative hurdles, saying government employees were obstructing revisions to laws intended to support industrialists. She said importing raw materials was more expensive than importing finished readymade goods.

She stressed the need to revise provisions related to concessions on raw material imports to facilitate the establishment of domestic factories.

According to Minister Yadav, market monitoring has been intensified to curb black marketing and price rises ahead of the approaching festivals.

Committee Chair Rahbar Ansari urged the ministry to advance legal reforms aimed at protecting consumers’ interests and curbing cartels and black marketing.

Ansari said the sugar shortage could have been avoided if 50 to 60 metric tonnes of sugar had been imported from Thailand and Brazil on time. He also said the government needed to end the practice of purchasing costly software for use in government agencies.

(With inputs from RSS)