The government is set to hike public transportation fare and is making final preparation to revise the hike plan made regarding the rise in prices of fuel and non-fuel components.

Officials at the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) informed that they had already completed studying fuel and non-fuel costs. “We have completed studying changes in prices of fuel and non-fuel components over the past year,” Sharad Adhik

ari, acting director general of DoTM, said, adding, “We will fix the new fare as per the changes in price of these components.” 

Adhikari said the department would write to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) for the final approval once the new rate is finalized. As per the Scientific Fare Determination Mechanism that the government enforced on 2009, transportation fare has to be revised once a year based on fuel and non-fuel factors.

Non-fuel factors include price of vehicles, spare parts and lubricants, bank interest rates, salary of staffers, and inflation rate, among others. 

As reported by Republica, according to the existing provision, transport fare has to be revised if fuel price increases by 5 percent. New fare is determined on the basis of 35 percent contribution from fuel factor and 65 percent contribution from non-fuel factors.

Transport entrepreneurs have been demanding that the government raise fare by at least 15 percent. But Adhikari hinted that the fare won´t be hiked by more than 10 percent. 

The government had raised transportation fare by 9 percent in March last year.

Meanwhile, transport entrepreneurs have urged the government to revise fare at the earliest. “Prices of fuel as well as non-fuel components have increased significantly,” Dolnath Khanal, general secretary of Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs (FNNTE), said demanding that the government hike transport fare by at least 15 percent.