The current prohibitory order will come to an end at midnight today and the chief district officers of Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur are holding talks regarding the steps that need to be taken next.

During the current order, the District Administration Offices of the three districts within the valley had eased a few provisions unlike in the previous prohibitory order. It has allowed more shops to open albeit on alternate days and shops selling essential goods have been allowed to open for a longer period of time.

The administration offices also allowed public vehicles with a capacity of more than 25 seats to operate on odd-even vehicle registration number basis. However, this step had angered most of the public transportation entrepreneurs and workers and they had urged the government to allow all types of public vehicles to resume services. Transport entrepreneurs had met the chief district officer of Kathmandu and other government authorities on June 29 and tabled a proposal to allow all public vehicles to be allowed to resume operation from July 5.

Bhim Jwala Rai, President of the Independent Transport Workers Association of Nepal, informed they had told the government authorities during the meeting that they would abide by the government rules till July 4 and if there was no decision from the government then they would resume operation of all public vehicles.

He mentioned there are over seven lakh public vehicles in the country which have a capacity of fewer than 25 seats and both owners and workers of such vehicles are facing a difficult time to even feed their families. Rai said there is no option other than to resume operation of all public vehicles because they are bank loans to pay too.

He informed that during the meeting talks were held on further easing some provisions. The meeting of the chief district officers will take a decision regarding that today.