Though more vehicles were plying on the roads and more shops were open on the third day of the wek-long bandh (general strike) called by the Maoists on Tuesday, common people said they were facing various problems due to the bandh.
A sizeable number of tempos, micro-buses, taxis and minibuses were seen plying to provide services to commuters. However, such vehicles were charging more money to the passengers. Passengers said vehicles were charging nearly double the fair saying they were providing service to the people at risk.
However, talking to Nepalnews, acting president of Federation of Nepalese Transporter Entrepreneurss and President of Nepal Yatayat, a private transportation company, Hari Narayan Shahi, said they have told their employees not to ask for extra money from passengers.
“I have heard that some buses and other vehicles are charging extra money from passengers, but we have not received any complaint in this regard,” he said.
He said vehicles are being operated as it was hard to survive by keeping the vehicles off the road for seven days. “We have to give remuneration to the drivers and staffs and have to pay loans, so we could not afford to keep the vehicles off the roads for such a long time,” he added.
He said that though they were not assured of the security arrangements, they were operating the vehicles to sustain the business.
Meanwhile, the prices of commodities especially vegetables have gone up sharply due to the bandh. Retail shops are fixing the prices of commodities on their own citing the bandh.
Director of the Kalimati Fruits and Vegetable Market Development Committee Bishnudutta Awasthi, told Nepalnews, that the price has gone down in the wholesale market in the recent days as they could not supply vegetables to the retail market.
He said that green vegetables imported from other parts of the country have started to rot in the wholesale market in Kalimati.
He informed that nearly 40 metric tons of vegetable has decayed over the last three days Sunday due to the bandh as the flow of vegetables to the retail market from Kalimati was almost nil.
He said that there was no shortage of vegetable in the market, adding, “Forget about shortage, green vegetables have started to rot in Kalimati.”
Meanwhile, spokesman at the Home Ministry, Gopendra Bahadur Pandey, said life was returning to normalcy thanks to the adequate security arrangements made by the government.
“The effect of bandh has been gradually decreasing as the government is providing adequate security and there has been no untoward incidents during the bandh,” he claimed.