About 2,080 quintals of rice is rotting in a Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) depot as local villagers did not buy the grain. [break]The locals stopped buying rice from the NFC in Bajhang after the World Food Program (WFP) started distributing rice in remote districts facing a food crisis.
WFP, under its food-for-work program, has been distributing rice in remote villages. "We receive rice for working on road construction sites," Jay Singh Bohara, a resident of Surpa village, said. "As we receive rice in our own villages, we do not go to district headquarter for it."
At district headquarters Bajhang, NFC has not sold a single kg of rice in the last one year. "Only sacks of rice sent to depots in the villages have been sold so far," said Ram Bahadur Thapa, chief of the NFC depot at Bajhang district headquarters. "Therefore, we have demanded less rice for next year."
In past years, locals from Ridapata, Subeta, Chainpur, Surpa, Daili, Chod, Sunikot, Mashta, Kailash, Kotidewal, Lamatola, Kandel and Hemntawada villages in Bajhang used to come to district headquarters for rice. But after the WFP transported rice to the villages, no one has turned up at district headquarters.
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