Kathmandu: Nepal's new Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has ordered his aides to cut down the number of vehicles used by the secretariat and his security personnel in the wake of acute fuel shortage due to a month-long blockade of border trade points with India. The Prime Minister has also urged people to practice restraint while using the vehicles.
As per the instruction, the number of vehicles used by the secretariat and security personnel deployed for his protection has been reduced, according to Prime Minister's Press Advisor Pramod Dahal. Similarly, Home Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet has also cut down the number of vehicles used for his security and escort.
He has announced that vehicles from Nepal Police and Armed Police Force will not be used in his motorcade. Basnet made the proposal during the meeting of the chiefs of the three security organs on Sunday. Meanwhile, officials said studies of over one million students in 4,000 academic institutions in Nepal are being affected due to the shortage of fuel as a large number of them depend upon school buses.
Protests have been ongoing for nearly a month over blockade of a key trade point with India mainly by Indian- origin Madhesis against division of their homeland in the new Constitution. Madhesi parties, that claim to represent the interests of these inhabitants of the Terai region, and Tharu ethnic groups are against the Constitution which they see it as flawed and discriminatory to their interests.
The fuel shortage as well as the agitation in southern Nepal are affecting the academic calendar that was already offset by the devastating earthquake of April 25 and aftershocks, Association of Private Educational Institutions of Nepal (APEIN) said in a statement. All the private academic institutions in the valley would be shut at least till mid-November if fuel supplies did not improve immediately, it added.
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