A whopping 460,000 kg of Japan-donated rice is languishing in the warehouse of government-run Nepal Food Corp. in a district in far-western Nepal because the grain has failed to find takers, officials said Wednesday.
Villagers in Jumla, a district located 350 km northwest of Katmandu, prefer the more expensive Nepali rice sold locally to the subsidized Japanese rice for reasons ranging from the latter's different taste to the fact that it becomes sticky and does not increase in volume in the course of cooking, said Rana Bahadur Budhathoki, NFC chief for the district.
"Though the Japanese rice is far better in quality than Nepali rice sold in the district, people are not buying Japanese rice because of their food habit," Budhathoki said.