Student unions announce protest against fuel price hike

KATHMANDU: Six student unions affiliated to various political parties have announced various protest programmes against the government’s decision to hike the price of petroleum products.

Submitting a memorandum to the Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, the six students unions demanded that the government roll back its decision to hike the price of petroleum products.

The student unions warned that they would not allow the Director General of the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to enter the office from 9 am to 11 am on Friday and to stage a demonstration with empty cooking gas cylinders at Exhibition Road at 2 pm on Sunday.

The NOC jacked up prices of petroleum products again in a span of 12 days on Wednesday.

The state-owned monopoly increased the price of petrol, diesel and kerosene by Rs 3 per liter and aviation fuel by Rs 5 per litre. Similarly, the price of cooking gas was hiked by Rs 75 per cylinder.

As per the revised rate, petrol will now cost Rs 136 per litre, diesel and kerosene will cost Rs 119 per litre and aviation fuel for domestic carriers will cost Rs 101 and international carriers will cost USD 895 per kilo litre.

Likewise, the cooking gas will cost Rs 1, 575 per cylinder.

Meanwhile, All Nepal National Free Students’ Union, a sister wing of the main opposition CPN-UML, burnt the effigy of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba outside the Ratna Rajya Campus in protest against the fuel price hike.