Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 9:

Agriculture Development Bank-Nepal (ADB-N) has handed over the management of three Small Farmers’ Development Projects (SFDP) namely Sundarpur SFDP in Udaypur, Chhaprari SFDP in Siraha and Pato SFDP of Saptari district to community-based cooperatives run by farmers.

Yogendra Yadav, manager of ADB-N Beltar sub-branch, handed over the contract paper to Mahakali Devi Chaudhary, chairperson of Sundarpur Small Farmers’ Cooperative Ltd.

Sundarpur SFDP is run by all women members comprising of 62 groups from 333 households. According to Meera Dhungel, chief officer at the project, Rs 2.7 million loan assets has been given to the community.

Established in 1996, Sundarpur SFDP has already floated loans about Rs 10 million to small and marginalised farmers for various income generating activities. And it has also recovered Rs 7.3 million so far.

The Sundarpur SFDP has been able to make a cent per cent recovery of overdue loan and interest, said Chaudhary, adding that the new community management would help to improve the living standard and income generation of poor families in the village.

Meanwhile, Ram Swaharat Yadav, branch manager of ADB-N, Lahan handed over the management of Chhaprari SFDP to Magen Kamat, chairman of Small Farmers Cooperative Ltd, Padariya. The cooperative has 375 members, alongwith 123 women members in 62 groups.