These days, people of this village, which is home to around 100 families, instead extend loans to others. But like many in the country, these people did not amass wealth through remittances sent by family members working abroad. They took up commercial vegetable farming.[break]
One factor that played a key role in changing their fate is electrification.
Due to absence of electricity in the village, most of the people could not take advantage of irrigation facilities to irrigate their lands. As a result most of the land in the village used to remain barren or give very little yields.
"The situation was so worse back then, and from mid-May famine-like situation used to haunt us every year ," said Baidya Narayan Yadav, a local.
But after electrification in the village around nine years ago, everything has changed. Villagers started using water pumps to extract water and irrigate their lands. Gradually, they shifted their focus to vegetable farming which has proved to be a boon for the village.
Now even those growing vegetables on five katthas of land earn more than Rs 200,000 a year, which is enough to feed a family for a year. "They now have been sending their wards to private schools," Yadav said. "And corrugated sheets have replaced thatched roofs."
People, who used to visit this village to purchase timber, now come here to buy vegetables, Madhav Thapaliya, a vegetable farmer, said. And since vegetables are grown here throughout the year, wholesalers from as far as Jaynagar of India visit the village to purchase the products.
Currently, the village grows and exports up to 50 tons of vegetables per week. These vegetables -- ranging from bitter gourd, egg plant, pumpkin, bottle gourd and cauliflower to tomatoes, cucumber, pointed gourd and spinach, among others -- have currently found market in Choharwa and Dhangadi of Siraha district.
But during haat, weekly village fair, wholesalers from as far as India, Morang in eastern Nepal and Dhanusha in the west arrive here to purchase vegetables. With this the village now earns weekly a revenue of Rs 500,000 to Rs 700,000.
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