Nepal’s LPG crisis has been building for six months, but the recent floods and landslides have pushed it to another level. The closure of the Prithvi Highway, the capital’s main supply route, has made a bad situation worse. Gas tankers have failed to reach Kathmandu in sufficient numbers, households are spending hours in queues, and many consumers are struggling to find cooking gas at all. Yet road disruptions or closures cannot account for everything. Industry, Commerce and Supplies Minister Gauri Kumari Yadav has pointed to an alarming situation: she said the state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation has been supplying around 48,000 cylinders to Kathmandu every day, but only 19,000 to 20,000 are reportedly reaching consumers. Where are the rest? The minister says bottlers have failed to explain the gap despite repeated letters from the corporation. She has threatened to take action against bottlers, including revoking their licences. That may be necessary if companies have violated supply rules. But threats alone will not restore public confidence. The government needs to establish, through records and inspections, where the cylinders are going and why they are not reaching households. The bottlers, for their part, say the minister’s remarks amount to harassment and argue that the government should work with them rather than threaten them.
Expiry date of LPG cylinders lacks monitoring
Nepal has 58 private gas enterprises, with the state-owned Salt Trading Corporation controlling around 20 percent of the market. This structure underscores the importance of effective monitoring. If each of the 58 enterprises had delivered 3,000 cylinders to Kathmandu daily, as the minister indicated, the shortage would have been far less severe. This begs a fundamental question: Why doesn’t the government have a mechanism to swiftly identify which bottlers are supplying how much and where their cylinders are going? When supply is disrupted, it is extremely easy to create artificial shortages. The government must monitor dealers, track cylinder deliveries and penalize those caught hoarding supplies or charging unlawful prices. A similar pattern emerges every monsoon season and during major festivals. Roads are blocked, supplies become scarce, and prices rise. Cooking gas, sugar, cooking oil, rice and other staples become more expensive. Traders blame transportation costs, consumers blame stockpiling, and regulators issue warnings. After a few weeks, the problem fades away until the next disruption. This cycle must come to an end. A government that understands how fragile its monsoon roads are should not wait for landslides to discover that Kathmandu is heavily reliant on a single supply route. The government should maintain strategic reserves of LPG and other essential supplies in and around the capital. Before major festivals and the rainy season, alternative supply routes and temporary distribution stations should be prepared.
Digital tracking can help. Every LPG cylinder shipped to Kathmandu should be traceable from the bottling facility to the approved dealer. Daily records and sales statistics should be made public. Surprise inspections should be conducted to verify stockpiles, and fines for hoarding, creating artificial shortages and overcharging should be imposed immediately. The government should also have a clearly defined emergency distribution strategy. During road closures, tankers should be prioritized on alternative routes, and the Nepal Oil Corporation should have the authority to reroute supplies between bottlers and areas without bureaucratic delays. Most importantly, enforcement cannot be limited to public warnings. If dealers or bottlers are proven to be creating shortages for profit, they should face penalties, suspension or licence termination, depending on the offence. Nepal cannot prevent every landslide or flood, but it can and must prevent a damaged road from becoming a national supply catastrophe. The perennial shortage of LPG has put the government in an awkward position. If it wants to prevent such situations from recurring, it must start maintaining proper records of dealers, strengthen monitoring of supply and distribution, and enforce the rules firmly.
