Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has requested his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to order the Indian supplier agency to ease the supply of petroleum products to Nepal, especially the cooking gas.

PM Bhattarai said during a discussion with cooking gas dealers Thursday that he had telephoned the Indian PM to take necessary steps to make the fuel supply smooth. According to him, the Indian PM assured that India would increase consignments of cooking gas to Nepal.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to provide additional 2 billion rupees to the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) for the purchase of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

A meeting of the council of ministers decided to provide the money in credit in response to the demand from the Ministry of Commerce and Supply for financial assistance from the government to ease the supply.

"The government will provide Rs 2 billion to the NOC immediately," Finance Minister Barshaman Pun said after the cabinet meeting. According to him, the cabinet also decided to form a monitoring mechanism headed by a joint secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies.

The government also decided to provide Rs 250 million to the NOC on Wednesday.

Unhappy with the insufficient government assistance, Supply minister Lekhraj even threatened to resign if the government did not provide Rs 4.5 billion required to nomalise the fuel supply. nepalnews.com