The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) said Thursday that it has managed to improve petrol availability, but has slashed the supply of diesel and kerosene -- the two major loss making items -- augmenting their shortage in the market. The corporation is presently pumping out about 110,000 liters of diesel a day in the Kathmandu Valley, shows NOC records. This is just about 40 percent of what used to be consumed here during normal times. "The situation is still worse in the case of kerosene,' said Sharad Bhandari, general secretary of Nepal Petroleum Dealers Association (NPDA), who told the Post that the corporation is presently supplying just about 200,000 liters of kerosene a week in the Valley. The volume is not even enough to meet the daily demand of the fuel in the market. Dealers stated that the corporation was distributing more petrol once its profit from the product soared to about Rs 10.50 per liter after August 16. "However, it is strategically cutting supplies of diesel, sold mainly to public vehicles at cheaper rates, to cut losses,' said Bhandari. Private pump operators said that of the total supply, the corporation is pumping more than half the diesel to the seven institutional dealers like those of the army, police, armed police force and Sajha cooperatives, which are selling them to commercial consumers at Rs 80 a liter. "But it is supplying us (private dealers) less than half of the distributed quantity, whereas demand from our buyers (public vehicles and goods carriers) far exceeds the demand of the institutional dealers,' said Bhandari. Commoners that largely rely on public transportation for commuting and kerosene for cooking food said that the corporation has forced them to continue to live in a crisis. "It's been very difficult to travel to the city core from the where I live, as the number of vehicles operating on the Duwakot-Ratnapark route has gone down to two from at least a dozen,' said Govinda Paudel, resident of Jhaukhel, Bhaktapur. While the number of vehicles on the road remained low, passengers could be seen traveling on rooftops and hanging all over the vehicles. Such scenes are mainly visible on vehicles plying on Bhaktapur and Dhulikhel routes. Also what has gone unnoticed is the queue of kerosene consumers and their agony. A kerosene dealer in Lokanthali said that he has not received fuel from the corporation for about two weeks and the pressure from consumers had become unbearable. The situation has become more difficult for the middle income groups as the shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has become severe, and kerosene -- the alternate cooking fuel -- is also not available in the market. LPG Industries Association officials said that the corporation supplied a mere 40 percent gas of the normal requirement in July. "The situation is still bad in August,' said an official at Nepal Gas Industries (NGI), the largest LP gas company of the country. According to the official, NGI sold some 400 tons of gas in July, whereas its monthly sales stood at over 1,200 tons during normal times. "The pressure from household consumers and restaurants and hotels is so strong, our staffs are having a tough time facing them,' he stated, venting ire against NOC for neither correcting pricing policy nor smoothening supplies.