Kathmandu, July 17 -- Seven out of the eight deep borings installed for irrigation in ward 4 of Bara's Pheta Rural Municipality have dried up due to a prolonged dry spell during the mid-monsoon. The transformer of one of the borewells, which was functioning, was stolen.

The canals under the Narayani Irrigation System that were filled with river sediments years ago are yet to be cleared, and the municipality's excavator, which could have been used to clean the canals, is defunct.

"Farmers in our areas have not been able to plant paddy this year," Wakil Prasad Yadav, ward chair, told the Post over the phone from Birgunj. "I am also a farmer, and we do not know if we could cultivate our land this monsoon. There is no rainfall."

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