Nepal imposed vehicle curbs due to fuel shortage

Nepal on 27 September 2015 enforced an odd-even licence plate system for plying of vehicles on alternate days.

With this, drivers are permitted on the roads only on alternate days depending on whether their licence plates end in odd or even numbers.

The step was taken due to growing fears of a fuel shortage after protesters, belonging to Madhesi community, blocked a major Indo-Nepal border trade route. The route is blocked since the night of 24 September 2015.

The protestors are seeking amendments to Nepal’s new Constitution adopted on 20 September 2015.

Hundreds of protestors called for changes in the constitution as they jammed a bridge crossing in the town of Birgunj, 90 km south of Kathmandu that serves as the key centre for oil and food imports into the landlocked nation from India.

Why Madhesis are protesting in Nepal?

The Madhesi community is seeking amendments to the plans adopted under the Constitution to divide the country into seven federal provinces. As they feel that it has failed to satisfy the Madheshis and Tharus who constitute 70 percent of the Terai population and they regard the formation of seven federal provinces as per the Constitution as grossly unfair to them.
As per the Nepal’s new constitution, only eight districts in the Terai region, from Saptari in the East to Parsa in the West, have been given the status of a province; the remaining 14 districts are to be joined with the hill districts, with the sole purpose of converting the local people into a minority.

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