March 4: The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has increased the prices of fuel with effect from Thursday midnight (March 4). The prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene each have been increased by Rs 5 per litre, the state-owned national news agency RSS reported.    

With the revised price, petrol will now cost Rs 150 per litre while diesel and kerosene will cost Rs 133 per litre in Kathmandu valley.    

Likewise, the price of aviation fuel has been increased by Rs 10 per litre for domestic flights while the price has been increased by US$ 100 per kilolitre for international flights. The price of cooking gas (LPG) however has not been changed.    

The NOC hiked the price of petroleum products after receiving a revised list of fuel prices from the Indian Oil Corporation recently.

This is the eighth time in the last seven months that the NOC has increased the prices of petroleum products, according to the data published on NOC’s website. In February alone, NOC had increased the fuel price three times on February 1, February 19 and February 20 (only ATF price). NOC again increased the price in less than two weeks.

The state-owned oil monopoly has been saying time and again that is under compulsion to increase the price of fuel due to heavy losses it has to incur while selling fuel at subsidized rate.