The Bhutanese Leading the way.
There are report of fuel shortages in Trashigang, Bumthang and Trongsa. A source explained that shortage has been caused due to an invoice mistake by the fuel supplier IOCL whereby they added some Indian taxes not applicable to Bhutan in the invoice.
The invoice should only have the cost of fuel and the cost of transportation but several other Indian taxes were added going as high as Nu 10,000 extra per truck.
As a result, the Indian customs have stopped the trucks before entering the Gelephu, Samdrupjongkhar and Nganglam from 3rd April 2026. Even if the trucks come in then Bhutanese fuel companies would have to pay more which is not acceptable to them.
As a result, shortages have started as fuel trucks entering from Samdrupjongkhar supplies the six eastern Dzongkhags of Samdrupjongkhar, Trashigang, Trashiyangtse, Mongar, Lhuentse and Pemagatshel; fuel trucks entering from Gelephu supply the central Dzongkhags of Trongsa, Bumthang and Zhemgang and also the southern Dzongkhags of Dagana and Sarpang; and fuel trucks from Nganglam supply just Nganglam.
A similar problem had developed at the Phuentsholing gate that supplies western Bhutan, Chukha and Samtse around two weeks ago but the issue was resolved after 15 affected fuel trucks were left stranded for around 3 days.
The situation was made worse in Trashigang due to the high vehicle movement with the Rhododendron Festival and this meant higher than normal fuel consumption without resupply.
The wrong invoices happened due to some system problem of the supplier IOCL which they are trying to resolve and send the correct invoices so that the trucks can get through.
The aim is to solve the problem by today and try and get in the trucks.
The LPG supply is not impacted but there has been some panic hoarding going on which leads to LPG running out earlier than usual.
