NFC says that it still has 220 tons of rice at its Khalanga depot but the four permanent and eight temporary depots in the villages have not received a single grain as contractors have refused to transport the rice.
"There is great risk in transporting rice. There are no employees at the depots in the villages to hand the grain over to," says transporter Bir Bahadur Basnet, explaining the famine situation in the villages. Basnet says the grain can only be taken after making payments in Khalanga and contractors are not taking any risk as they fear the consequences of not being able to sell the grain.
NFC has permanent depots in Ragda, Pajaru, Dussera and Nayakwada Village Development Committees (VDC) and temporary depots in Gharanga, Karkijyula, Tapuchour, Samakhola, Shivalaya, Thalaha, Kalimati and Syaulibazar VDCs but there is no presence of NFC personnel at these depots.
The Local Development Officer (LDO) had convened a meeting of the District Food Supply and Management Committee Thursday after contractors refused to transport the food and he asked the center to make arrangements for transport by helicopter. "But we have yet to receive any response from the center," says LDO Bishnu Datta Gautam.
The government allocated an additional 750 tons of rice for Jajarkot after the food crisis developed but the rice has been left in Nepalgunj for lack of transportation to the villages. "We don´t have the means to store the additional rice in Khalanga and can´t transport the stock in Khalanga to the villages. So, there is no way we can bring rice from Nepalgunj," Gautam argues.
Gautam says the rice should be transported from Nepalgunj by mid-October and feels this cannot be done on time. He fears the food promised by the government for the diarrhea victims may also remain stuck at district headquarters. "There is no sign that people will walk for two or three days for 10 kg of rice," Gautam states.
On the other hand, the World Food Program (WFP) has yet to deliver the food it promised a month after signing an agreement with partner agencies like Deprocs, GTZ, the Red Cross and HELVETAS. WFP, which aimed at distributing 2,800 tons of food in 10 months since last August as part of the Food for Work Program, was supposed to deliver lentils and rice from August 1 onwards but the food has not arrived yet.
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