Biratnagar, August 22 :

Paddy seeds planted on thousands of bighas of land in eastern Terai have dried up due to the lack of rain.

Not only seeds, but paddy plants too have started wilting due to drought. Most farmers who have to depend on rainwater for irrigation are hurt by the dry spell.

Regional Agriculture Directorate (RAD) at Biratnagar said altogether 30 per cent of total paddy seeds have dried up due to insufficient rain in the eastern region. Officer of RAD, Ram Pabitra Mandal said paddy plants of even those places, which have irrigation facilities, have started drying up due to insufficient rain. Farmers of Morang, Sunsari, Jhapa, Saptari and Siraha are affected most due to insufficient rain this year.

A farmer Tanka Bhattarai of Morang-3 said paddy plants on his 10 bighas of land have started drying up due to lack of enough water.

Farmer Jay Ram Thakur of Morang, Jhurkiya said paddy plants as well as seeds have dried up due to drought.

According to RAD, Biratnagar, paddy plantation should have been completed by July but this has not been so. According to a statistics of RAD, 80 per cent of paddy plantation is complete in Sunsari, 75 per cent in Morang and 70 per cent in Jhapa.

Paddy is planted on altogether 50 million hectares of land in 16 districts of the eastern region. It has been estimated that rice production this year will decrease by upto .1 million metric tonnes as compared to previous years. Last year 4.3 million metric tonnes of paddy was produced in eastern region.

Farmers have demanded to declare the region with inadequate rainfall as a dry region and also have urged the government to bring special package for regions with low rainfall.

In Bara also, District Agriculture Development Office said if the dry spell continues, then paddy production will decrease significantly this year.