Gorkha. Gorkha Municipality-8 has distributed hand-held tractors to farmers to make agriculture technology-friendly. Ward chair Rishiram Khatri informed that 16 farmers of the ward have been provided tractors with subsidy.

According to him, tractors have been distributed targeting the poor, young farmers and women dependent on agriculture to increase production with less investment while making the farmers agricultural technology-friendly.

“Hand-held tractors have been distributed to each farmer with a grant of Rs 20,000 each,” said Ward Chair Khatri. He said that the tractor distributed to the farmers has a capacity of six horsepower.

Under the mechanization program of the ward office in agriculture for the current fiscal year 2081/82 BS, hand-held tractors have been distributed to the farmers on subsidy. Municipality Mayor Krishna Bahadur Rana Magar said that the municipality has been running a subsidy program on agricultural implements to the farmers with the aim of not making the fields barren due to lack of cattle as the number of cattle rearers in the village has been decreasing lately.

He said that only the farmers who had not received the subsidy earlier were selected while providing the subsidy. Mayor Rana Magar shared that the municipality has been giving priority to the agricultural equipment grant program as it is necessary to mechanize and modernize the agricultural system to commercialize the agriculture sector and increase production.