Annapurna Post, Kantipur Publication’s Kantipur Daily and Republic Media’s Nagarik have reached into an agreement to increase the price of the Nepali dallies by 100%.  The dailies that cost Rs. 5 were priced double at Rs. 10 on December 14, 2011. On the surface, these three newspapers used to be considered rivals of each other.

In response, Kunda Dixit in his Twitter post, told, "Dead tree newspapers are dinosaurs, start reading them online and save the environment."

The longest notice about the price hike is published by Annapurna Post. Nagarik published the second longest and Kantipur published the shortest notice to explain why they have decided to hike the price. 

After reading the Annapurna Post’s explanation, it seems the management is struggling to prove that they
have a valid reason to increase the price by quoting examples of other countries.

But, it is to be seen how long the alliance will work. At this price point, there will be a lot of margin and at least one of them will try to take advantage of the extra cash to offer special discount on subscription. With the increase in online traffic, we can predict the sales of these newspaper to further decrease, hence causing panic among them to compete in price. I hope, we don’t need to wait longer to see if the prediction becomes true of not.

It is to be noted that the price of The Kathmandu Post and Republica Daily are not increased and they remain Rs. 5 per issue.