Law Minister Prem Bahadur Singh said the cabinet meeting held on Tuesday decided to dispatch the fund through the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC). [break]
Responding to the massive pressure from the law makers and affected farmers the MoAC had proposed a relief package that includes cash incentives, waiver of land tax and free kit of vegetable and crop seeds to the victims.
The farmers have been launching protests for a month now demanding compensation from the government for the loss they suffered as a result of bad seeds they imported from India.
Madhav Kumar Nepal had already given assurance to the farmers to provide relief package on behalf of the government. They had also demonstrated the maize plants with unfertilized cobs in Singha Durbar last week. Farmers of Bara, Parsa, Rautahat, Sarlahi and Nawalparasi are the most affected.
Agitating farmers said maize crops in 46,000 hectares were damaged.
Haji Rasul Ansari of Bara, president of Nepal Farmers´ Interest Protection Committee, farmers have suffered a loss of at least Rs 180,000 per hector.
According to Ansari 20,000 hector of maize farming in Bara, 15,000 hector in Sarlahi, 5000 hector in Rautahat, 1000 hector in Parsa and 5000 hector in Nawalparasi have been ruined by unfertile seeds.
Farmers had used different varieties of seeds produced by Pioneer Company, Pinnacle Company, Seed Tech Company, Sandhya Company and Tropical Company.
The recent study conducted by the MoAC shows that 80 percent of maize farming in Bara, 70 percent in Parsa, 55 percent in Rautahat, 40 percent in Sarlahi and 20 percent in Nawalparasi was damaged.
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