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Among the 13 districts of Bagmati Province, Kathmandu ranks third in terms of having the least amount of cultivated land. Most of the land in Kathmandu is used for housing and plots, so there is very little farming. However, Kathmandu ranks first in terms of agricultural loan investment.

A study shows that about 52.6 percent of the agricultural loans disbursed in Bagmati Province have been invested in Kathmandu. In a city where there is little farming, non-farmers have been found to misuse agricultural loans.

According to a study by the Nepal Rastra Bank, a total of 121 billion rupees in agricultural loans has been invested across the 13 districts of Bagmati Province, of which 64 billion rupees have gone to Kathmandu alone. Kathmandu has only 19,943 hectares of land used for food and vegetable farming. In contrast, Kavrepalanchok — known as a pocket area for vegetable production — has received only 5.17 billion rupees in investment, even though it has about 590,662 hectares of farmland, which is 29 times more than Kathmandu.

This clearly indicates misuse of agricultural loans. Farmer leaders also say that subsidized agricultural loans are being used by the well-connected rather than real farmers.

People’s News Monitoring Service.