Lalitpur. Due to lack of sufficient rainfall across the country, while the farmers are facing the problem of lack of irrigation during planting, the goal of irrigation expansion in Nepal has not yet been fulfilled. As a large part of arable land is still dependent on rainwater, farmers are forced to deal with production risks.

According to the Department of Irrigation and Water Resources, irrigation facilities have been extended to only 62.68 percent of the required irrigation areas of the country so far. According to the statistics of the department, there is a total of 35 lakh 57 thousand 764 hectares of arable land in Nepal. Among them, 25 lakh 36 thousand 319 hectares of land require regular irrigation, but till now only 15 lakh 90 thousand 388 hectares of land have been provided with irrigation facilities.

Due to lack of timely rain this year, farmers in many districts are facing shortage of water for planting. In some places, the paddy seeds kept for planting have started drying up, while many farmers are waiting for rain from the sky. There is concern that this situation will affect rice production.