Farmers receive Rs 875m grant from DoA

Kathmandu, August 16

The Department of Agriculture (DoA) has already distributed 62.5 per cent of the total allocated grant amount for 2076 BS (April 14, 2019 to April 12, 2020).

According to a quarterly report of DoA, around Rs 875 million has been distributed to farmers under several projects of the government.

This year, the DoA had received annual budget worth Rs 2.63 billion, of which Rs 1.40 billion has been allocated for project grants.

As per the report, the grant amount has been distributed to several ongoing projects under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development. The grant has been distributed to crop insurance project, cold store project, project for

promotion and preservation of local crops, promotion of lemon farming project and fruit farming expansion in private land project.

Likewise, farmers involved in organic farming, riverbank farming, fruits and vegetable market expansion, Raising Incomes of Small and Medium Farmers Project and Rani Jamara Kulariya Irrigation Project have received grant from DoA.

As mentioned in the report, a total of 32,356 farmers have benefited from the government’s grant distribution. Currently, around 26 projects are ongoing under the supervision of DoA.

As mentioned in the report, however, the progress of most of the projects is ‘unsatisfactory’. The department has cited lack of human resources in the field offices as the prime obstacle in implementing the projects.

“Almost 26 per cent of posts in our field offices are currently vacant. This has affected effective implementation of the projects,” reads the report.

The report has further mentioned that DoA is also facing problems in implementing and tracing the work progress of organic farming, agriculture market and local crop promotion projects that are running under the local governments and Agriculture Knowledge Centre.

Moreover, most of the applicants seeking government’s grants through the announced projects do not meet the set criteria, the department officials informed. Also, lack of infrastructure and policy ambiguity are other problems that the DoA is facing in effective implementation of the projects.