After transport entrepreneurs’ announcement that they would disobey the odd and even rule for vehicular traffic from Friday, all the three district administration offices of Kathmandu Valley have officially announced to end the system.

Chief District Officer at Kathmandu Kali Prasad Parajuli said that the decision of lifting odd-even was made seeing overcrowding on public transport as people have started moving around with the businesses and offices open.

“All vehicles can ply in the Valley following health protocols,” said Parajuli.

Although the Valley’s authorities had put in place odd and even rules in public and private vehicles plying on the streets in the first week of August to contain the Covid-19, the decision was not effectively implemented.

On the other hand, the number of infections continued to rise.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, Kathmandu Valley recorded 363 new infections in the past 24 hours. Of them, 273 cases were confirmed in Kathmandu, 49 in Lalitpur and 41 in Bhaktapur. As of Thursday, the number of confirmed cases in the Valley has reached 117, 305.

While Kathmandu has reported 452 Covid-19-related fatalities so far, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur have recorded 139 and 97 deaths respectively.

However, transport entrepreneurs had been protesting against the government’s decision calling for the lifting of the government restrictions as their incomes had been curtailed. They had earlier had to face losses as they had to park their vehicles in garages for four months since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 24 and lasted till July 21.

Earlier, Nepal Transport Workers Association, Nepal Transport Workers Association-Independent and All Nepal Transport Workers Union had announced the defiance of government rules if it was not lifted by Friday.