The stock of food grains in the warehouse of the Humla depots of the Food Management and Trading Company Limited is low.
Even though four months have passed since the beginning of the current fiscal year, the new quota of food grains could not be transported owing to the lengthy transportation process, increasing the possibility of food shortage in the district. Krishna Prasad Adhikari, chief of Humla branch of FMTC, said that the stock of food grains in the warehouse is very low.
At present, there is only 300 quintals of food available in the warehouse. For the current fiscal year, 8,000 quintals of grain (6000 quintals from Surkhet and 2000 quintals from Nepalgunj) have been secured, but due to the long tender process for transportation, the food grains have not been transported so far, said Adhikari.
The Company had to issue tenders twice for the transportation of food grains by air route.
The first time when the tender notice was issued by the Company, no one responded to the tender citing the low transportation cost. A tender was issued for the transport rate of Rs. 150 per kg from Nepalgunj and Rs. 140 per kg from Surkhet in the first tender.
Again, for the second time, a tender was issued for Rs. 155 per kg from Surkhet and Rs. 160 per kg from Nepalgunj.
He said that in the second tender, Summit Air was selected for food grain transportation from Surkhet and Tara Air was chosen for transportation from Nepalgunj, but the agreement was not reached.
The FMTC issued a letter of intent for the agreement, but neither of the airlines has done so, said Adhikari.
The Company has already written a letter for the agreement. However, the work has not progressed because the airlines did not come in contact, he said.
Adhikari said that since the stock of food in the warehouse was low, they had to stop the distribution of rice by issuing notice after mid-October citing that it does not have enough food to distribute.
More than 2,000 quintals of rice is needed to sell food at once.
Meanwhile, the transportation of 2,000 quintals of rice for Simkot from Surkhet to Salisalla on foot and from there by helicopter started a couple of days ago.
Source : TRN,
