With less than two weeks for the start of Nepal’s biggest festival of Dashain, the food crisis in Barekot rural municipality of Jajarkot district is getting worse. Locals fret about how they will fill their tummy this festive season. According to Mahendra Shah, the chairman of the rural municipality, the food crisis is partly a result of hail and heavy rains destroying local crops. There has been some level of food crisis in Barekot ever since the wheat and barley plantations were destroyed back in April. Shah complains that even though he asked for 5,000 quintals of rice from the central government three months ago, the food aid is yet to come through.
Most people in the rural municipality are under the official poverty line. “They are not in a position to buy and eat. Nor does the local government have a budget for it. This is why we sought the help of the federal government,” he says. “There is effectively no food in the households here this festive season.”
The local depot of the government-owned Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) lies empty. Some local shops in Barekot have run out of rice to sell. In the shops that still have some, prices have more than doubled, making it unaffordable for most locals.
As the monsoon rains also destroyed the roads, food transport has been hindered. At present, horses and ponies are the only means to get around. With the roads blocked, the 51 quintals of rice that was sent to Barekot from Khalanga, the district headquarters, has been stranded in Fulchauli.
“All the grain we had is finished. If food transport does not resume soon, the situation could be dire,” says Ran Bahadur Singh, a local.
The NFC had set aside 2,100 quintals of rice for the Barekot depot but the rural municipality is yet to get this rice due to transport problems. NFC Jajarkot Chief Dharma Bahadur Basnet says that the 32 quintals of rice that was reserved for the district has already been distributed. “Rice sent from other districts are stuck on bad roads. Since the rice now has to be carried by horses, there has been some delay but it should soon reach Barekot,” he assures. “According to a new tender, contractors have been requested to transport rice shortly.”
The NFC offers subsidized rice to poor locals. But private dealers have been charging them as much as Rs 2,500 for a 30-kg sack, even though the market rate is just Rs 1,200. A local of Borekot-2, Manbire Nepali, says he is unable to buy any rice even though he is ready to pay up to double the going rate.
Says Gorakh Bahadur Singh, the principal of the Birendra Aishwarya Higher Secondary School, “It’s a huge problem. The poor are simply being priced out of the rice market.”
Meanwhile, it has been a month since Barekot NFC depot in-charge Rudra Bahadur Devkota has been out of reach.
