Agriculture budget being ‘misused’ in eastern region

Biratnagar, October 26

A huge amount of budget allocated for the agriculture sector is being spent on some other sectors in the eastern region.

As per sources, around 70 per cent of the budget set aside for the agriculture sector through district agriculture and the district livestock offices has been used for road construction and other infrastructure development activities by local bodies.

The government had earlier allocated a whopping Rs 1.18 billion for the agriculture sector targeting 16 districts of the eastern region.

Director of Regional Agriculture Directorate, Biratnagar, Hasta Bahadur Bista said the ‘misuse’ of fund had impacted regular agriculture and livestock programmes.

“There are dozens of programmes currently running in the region, including crops development programme, fish development programme, fertiliser-seed transportation programme, small irrigation programme and block and pocket programme under the Prime Minster Agriculture Modernisation Programme. Use of the fund meant for these programmes on some other activities has affected these programmes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the agriculture service centre set up at the grassroots level have been removed by the newly elected local units.