India to invest Rs 300 million to construct tubewells in Nepal

KATHMANDU: India will deepen its economic cooperation with Nepal by investing Rs 300 million to construct some 3,000 shallow tubewells in the country's Terai districts to provide irrigation facilities in the region.

New Delhi will allocate over Rs 300 million to construct altogether 2,700 shallow tube wells in nine districts of southern Nepal in the near future, according to Indian Embassy sources.

Indian Embassy in the capital is due to sign a number of Memorandum of Understandings with the Nepalese authorities to provide irrigation facilities to the Terai districts under government of India's economic cooperation projects.

As part of the Indian government's economic cooperation projects in Nepal, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu and the Nepali finance ministry have already signed a memorandum of understanding to erect 1,000 tube wells in the two Terai districts of Mahottari and Dhanusha.

Terai is known as the grainery of Nepal. The Indian assistance comes at a time when many districts of Nepal are facing food crisis due to delayed monsoon this year.

According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) almost 3.5 million Nepalese people are facing food scarcity in the current year.

The Indian assistance comes even as the Maoists intensify activities to disrupt Indian assistance projects in the country.