DHANKUTA, OCTOBER 18

Though farmers are using harmful chemicals as pesticides in vegetable farms in Dhankuta, the regulatory body concerned isn't doing enough to control this. As a result, consumers have started complaining about various health problems.

Local Consumer Rights Forum Chairperson Bipin Shrestha said millions of rupees allocated by all three levels of government to ensure drawdown on the use of poisonous chemicals in vegetables is drawing a blank.

Dhankuta Municipality Agriculture Service Section staff informed that farmers are using poisonous chemicals such as kingstar, thiadin, clorofidips, and dazagad in their vegetable farms.

Though farmers have been advised not to use or minimise the use of poisonous chemicals on vegetables, the tendency among farmers to use these harmful chemicals in vegetables excessively without consulting technicians has put people's health at risk, say health experts.

As per the official record with Agriculture Wisdom Centre Dhankuta, 17 million rupees was allocated for the purpose of minimising the use of poisonous chemicals and promoting the use of compost in the district in the last fiscal.

'Such a budget is used to provide grant to agriculture cooperatives, groups and individual firms to adopt organic farming,' said the centre's chief Purnamaya Limbu. Sadly, however, the budget is used for organising formal programmes only.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 19, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.