KATHMANDU, Sept 5: The government has assured that it has food stocks sufficient to meet the market demand for the next three months.

Madhu Kumar Marasini, secretary at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, informed the parliamentary Industry, Commerce, Labor and Consumer Welfare Committee on Tuesday that the government has a stock of 17,080.2 tons of food. “The quantity will be sufficient to meet the domestic demand for the next three months,” he said.

According to Marasini, the government has stepped up efforts to purchase additional paddy, in order to manage the food for the future. He added that the state-owned Food Management and Trading Company (FMTC) has signed agreements with seven local bodies of three districts of Karnali and Sudurpashchim provinces to purchase the local products.

The government records show that there is 4,468.2 tons of rice in stock in accessible districts, while it is 1,448.2 tons in the remote districts. The FMTC has 13,184.9 tons of rice in stock.

According to the FMTC, a process to purchase an additional 7,268.4 tons of rice has been started through bidding.  The public enterprise has 463.2 tons of paddy in stock, while 3,432 tons of wheat was recently imported from India, under the quota provision.    

 
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