NOC :state owned sinking entity

 The Himalayan Times

7 July 2022

NOC :state owned sinking entity

It is not surprising to hear that the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has again raised the prices of petroleum products effective Monday midnight citing losses of billions of rupees due to lack of price adjustment as per the price hike in the international market “NOC hikes price of petroleum products” (THT, July 5, Page 1). It buys petroleum products from India and claims that it has incurred a loss of Rs47 billion in the last 10 months, and this is expected to reach Rs60 billion in the next month. If it fails to clear its outstanding dues within the next month, which does not seem possible by any means, the supply of petroleum products to Nepal might come to a halt or reduced to a meagre volume.

NOC management must have developed a market selling pricing system after topping-up its operational costs plus taxes to be paid to the government for different purposes and commissions to be paid to the petroleum dealers. Being a state-owned entity, it is not supposed to make a huge profit and pay bonuses to its employees. Considering its enormous losses, there seems to be huge leakages both materially and financially here and there, which shows that both the NOC management and the government’s concerned authority are either not aware of them or knowingly making the corporation a milking cow.

Looking at the current pathetic financial positions of both the NOC and the government, an acute scarcity of petroleum products in the county seems to be the scenario not far from today. Unless and until the government continues to invest the huge amount of tax collected fund from petroleum products in non-productive activities, the nation will continue to suffer immensely from fund shortages to buy the required volume of petroleum products, which might ultimately paralyze the daily activities of the nation and the people. Time has come for government and the concerned authority to speed up the construction of national pride hydro projects and consider replacing the petrol-run vehicles with electric ones.

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj