No facilities for fuel quality test: NOC

KATHMANDU, Nov 7 - Though adulteration in petroleum products has remained a major problem for years, the country lacks the facilities to test the purity of petroleum products.Government officials revealed as much after huge numbers of motorcycles developed engine trouble due to tainted fuel sparking demands from all quarters for ...

However, officials said it would be impossible to get to the truth behind the reported massive adulteration of petroleum products due to lack of a sophisticated testing lab in the country.

Though the government investigation team has completed collecting petrol samples from different places in Eastern Nepal, the facilities available in the country are incapable of analysing their chemical composition. Local labs are only able to establish the density of petroleum products and the Final Boiling Point.

“We will have to wait for a few more days to identify the cause behind the current havoc as we are sending the samples to India and Singapore for testing,” Digambar Jha, managing director of the government oil monopoly Nepal Oil Corporation, told the press. He claimed that NOC found the final recovery of petroleum products to be 98 percent which is on a par with the international standard.

“We didn’t find any adulteration in samples of petroleum products collected from different tankers, NOC depots and petrol pumps using the testing means available to us,” said Jha.

He also claimed that oil supplied from Barauni in India -- from where it is shipped to Nepal -- had not caused any problems.

Customers and consumer rights groups have been exerting pressure on the government to find the reason behind the spate of engine trouble seen in two-wheelers in parts of the country including the Kathmandu Valley.

Vehicle dealers who are receiving hundreds of complaints every day about engine problems have blamed contaminated gasoline as being the culprit.

Meanwhile, the Forum for Protection of Consumers Rights-Nepal has urged the government to set up an effective mechanism to stop adulteration of gasoline which has been a longstanding problem.

Jyoti Baniya, general secretary of the forum, asked the government to conduct an immediate investigation and punish the guilty.

Minister of Commerce and Supplies Rajendra Mahato said the ministry would come up with a system to monitor petrol pumps and take action against those involved in cheating customers.

Purushottam Ojha, secretary of the ministry, directed NOC chief Jha to speed up the investigation on adulterated gasoline and find out the facts as soon as possible.