Barekot facing food crisis

Jajarkot, February 4

Acute food shortage has badly hit Barekot Rural Municipality in Jajarkot.

Locals in the rural municipality have been facing food crisis due to negligence of the contractor who was entrusted with supplying subsidised rice from Nayakdanda-based Nepal Food Corporation’ depot.

The crops the locals produce in their fields do not last even for six months leaving them high and dry.

The depot in the rural municipality has already run out of stock. Vice-chair of the rural municipality Oma Shahi said the villagers could not get the subsidised rice due to negligence on the part of the contractor.

Far-flung Barekot RM faces food crisis every year.

Man Bahadur Khadka, a representative of NB Builders that was given the responsibility of supplying subsidised rice, said they had received 454 quintals rice from the depot in mid-December, but it did not even last a month.

Due to shortage of rice, the locals are now compelled to buy rice paying double the price at the local market. Shahi added the poor and impoverished people were unable to buy rice, which had put them at risk of starvation.

“Well-off people can buy rice from the market, but the poor cannot,” she added.

Food items are transported using mules and horses, among other animals, due to lack of transportation facility in the farflung areas of the district. Lack of transport facility and difficult route deter local traders from supplying rice to remote areas of the district.

Acting Chief of Food Corporation, Jajarkot, Ram Prasad Poudel said they were coordinating with the contractor to supply the rice at the earliest. “The contractor has not heeded the request,” he added.

However, the representative of NB Builders Khadka informed that the rice would be supplied within a month.