Kathmandu, Jan 2: A Parliamentary committee has directed the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies to take action against the members of the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) board of directors who allowed the employees involved in oil theft to walk free and present all the papers related to the case to the committee.
A meeting of the Industry, Chamber and Consumers’ Welfare Committee today asked the Ministry to enforce the committee direction immediately.
Committee President Bhisma Raj Angdangbe directed Minister for Commerce and Supplies Sunil Bahadur Thapa, also present in the meeting, to make employees of the Ministry subordinate bodies responsible to duty and people. The committee expressed its serious objections to the release of the guilty in the oil theft.
Moreover, the Ministry has been urged to check those creating and promoting artificial shortage of cooking gas and petroleum products and furnish all documents related to them to the committee within a week. He stressed an effective monitoring on the part of government to checkout ‘unprofessionalism’ of gas dealers.
In response, Minister Thapa said a draft is being prepared to carry out amendments to necessary laws to end the NOC monopoly on transactions of petroleum products and the problems will resolved once the amendment draft is approved.
The lawmakers present in the meeting clamoured for action on petroleum dealers not abiding by the Automated Price System and those involved in oil theft.
Secretary at the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies Narayan Gopal Malego said efforts for policy reforms are being made to systematize the price of petroleum products and the government has started market monitoring to control irregularities in the supply of petro products.
NOC Managing Director Dr Chandika Prasad Bhatta said the present shortage of cooking gas in the market was due to insufficient supply from the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).
Source RSS Â
 board of directors.){kind=link}