By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, August 1: Paddy plantation of this year almost complete as plantation has been done in around 95 per cent of paddy field by the second week of Shrawan.
According to the statistics of the Department of Agriculture (DoA), paddy plantation has completed in around 1.298 million hectates of land out of the total 1.371 million hectares of paddy filed by last Tuesday.
Dr. Mahadev Paudel, information officer and senior agriculture economist of DoA, said that paddy has been planted in 94.64 per cent cultivable land of the country, which is only one per cent less than the previous year.
He said paddy plantation has reached in completion stage across the country and it would complete within a week.
However, there are few districts such as Udayapur, Dhankuta and Ilam where plantation is comparatively lower than other districts due to shortfall of rain.
The paddy plantation has reached only 73 per cent in Ilam, 79 per cent in Udayapur and 75 per cent in Dhankuta till date.
Paddy plantation has completed in above a dozen districts, including Kailali, Kanchanpur, Dolpa, Humla, Kalikot, Mugu, Jumla, Salyan, Jajarkot, Surkhet, Dailekh, Rupandehi and Nawalparasi.
Paudel expressed hope that the plantation will complete in around 99 per cent of land this year vis-à-vis last year.
“Timely and regular monsoon is supporting to complete paddy plantation and availability of labour in the local areas due to cause of COVID-19 is also contributing to make such progress on plantation even this year,” he said.
Around 93.82 per cent (45,216 hectares) of plantation is completed in the mountain region, 93.04 per cent (321,998 hectares) in hilly region and 95.25 per cent (931,011 hectares) in Terai region, he said.
Out of the total 1,371,706 hectares paddy plantation land, around 48,193 hectares in mountain region, 346,099 hectares in hilly region and 977,414 hectares of land is used for paddy cultivation.
Province wise, paddy plantation in Karnali has completed where plantation completed in entire paddy field of 38,385 hectares.
Paddy plantation in Sudurpashchim Province has almost completed as plantation is completed at 163,097 hectares that is 99.06 per cent of the paddy field.
Similarly, about 97.25 per cent (295,240 hectares) of total paddy growing field in Lumbini Province, 96.52 per cent (111,280 hectares) in Bagmati Province and 92.36 per cent (337,670 hectares) is completed in Province -2.
Likewise, the lowest paddy plantation has been done in Province-1 where plantation has completed only in 90.56 per cent (249,854 hectares) of the total paddy field of 275,901 hectares of land till date.