Minister for Industry, Commerce, and Supplies Gauri Kumari Yadav has directed authorities to make arrangements for providing cooking gas to consumers in the Kathmandu Valley by exchanging LPG cylinders of any company.
Minister Yadav instructed the Nepal Oil Corporation and gas companies to implement the arrangement immediately.
The measure is being introduced after floods disrupted gas supplies.
According to the minister’s secretariat, if consumers are unable to find a cylinder of the company they have been using, they can exchange it for a cylinder from another company and obtain cooking gas.
The arrangement will apply only in the Kathmandu Valley. The price of gas will remain the same regardless of which company’s cylinder is exchanged.
Gas supplies in the Kathmandu Valley have been disrupted to some extent due to the floods. The government is introducing the cylinder-exchange system to ease the shortage and make supplies more accessible.
Minister Yadav said that action would be taken against businesses that cause unnecessary hardship to consumers or create artificial shortages. Those found violating the prescribed arrangement will face action under prevailing law, she added.
