Government to purchase and sell food grains amid blockade and Tarai unrest

Kathmandu December 01 – Anticipating possible scarcity of food grains due to the unofficial blockade by India, the government today decided to purchase food grains, mainly paddy, produced within Nepal and distribute it among the people through its own agencies.

A meeting of Chief Secretary Somlal Subedi and secretaries of concerned ministries held yesterday at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers directed Ministry of Agricultural Development, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Commerce and Supplies to ensure purchase and sale of the paddy produced in Nepal.

Nepal produces paddy worth Rs 100 billion every year over 14,25,000 hectares of land. However, it is inadequate for Nepal as we have rice-eating culture. Nepal imports around 53 million tonnes of food grains every year, including rice, maize and wheat. When India banned export of rice in 2007 for four years due to the global food crisis, it resulted in smuggling and black marketing of rice in Nepal during the period, raising the price of rice then. The government’s step can work to prevent such a situation in near future.

Today’s meeting also instructed Ministry of Agricultural Development and Ministry of Finance to make adequate arrangement to set up service centers by arranging institutional structure and budget and ensure the justification of the service and sufficient human resources for purchasing and selling, according to Spokesperson of Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Uttar Kumar Khattarai Khatri.