MUGLIN (Chitwan), Jan 1: An ‘orange festival’ is being organized at Ichchha Kamana Rural Municipality of Chitwan from today. The three-day festival is being organized with an objective of ensuring a market for oranges incorporating Tokdand, Dhap, Majhgaun, Sirangaun and Dode villages of the rural municipality. A large quantity of orange is produced in these villages.

Chairperson of Ichchha Kamana Rural Municipality, Dan Bahadur Gurung, shared that the orange festival is going to be organized for the first time with the objective of ensuring market for the oranges produced by the local farmers and its promotion. "We have made arrangements where festival visitors can pick and eat oranges by climbing trees," he added.

Similarly, an orange eating contest would also be organized in the festival. Gurung said oranges would be kept at a discounted price as compared to market in the festival as well as different materials would be distributed to orange farmers and a training would also be imparted to farmers by agriculture technicians.

"We are organizing the festival with the belief that it will be easy to sell oranges produced in Ichchha Kamana Rural Municipality at different markets of the country as well as it will help for the publicity of tourism sites of the area," he mentioned. It is estimated that more than 450 farmers of Ichchha Kamana Rural Municipality would sell oranges worth Rs 100 million this year.

Farmers are now selling oranges at Rs 75-90 per kg from their farms. Oranges have been grown on 80 hectares of land in the rural municipality this year, according to the Agriculture Development Section of the rural municipality. A total of 1650 metric tonnes of oranges was produced in the rural municipality last year.

(RSS)

 
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