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Kathmandu Monday November 27, 2000 Mangshir 12, 2057.
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Shangri-La Air blamed for food shortage in Jumla
Post Report
JUMLA, Nov 26 - The remote mid-western district of Jumla is facing acute
shortage of food grains and the officials here blame it on Shangri-La Air, which is
responsible to transport food grains according the contract granted to the airlines.
According to Jamuna Prasad Goiet, chief at the Jumla office of Food
Corporation, Shangri-La Air carries alcoholic drinks and beer from Pokhara, Nepalgunj and
Surkhet.
Acting chairman of Jumla District Development Committee, Jaya Bahadur Shahi
said that the district is facing shortage of food grains since Shangri-La Air is not
regularly supplying the food.
Jumla Chief District Officer Mohan Prasad Pokharel said that they could even
terminate the contract granted to Shangri-La air if it goes on carrying private cargo and
not the food.
The renovation works at the Jumla airport is stopped during the day for the
need of bringing in food. The runway is being black topped with assistance of Asian
Development Bank under the Infrastructure Development Project.
Sujan Sharma, Project Manager of Kalika Construction Private Ltd. which is
undertaking the renovation, said that they would close down the runway from Wednesday if
the airlines continues to carry private cargo.
According to Sharma, an aircraft of the Airlines was not allowed to land at
the airport on Saturday and the aircraft had returned to Surkhet.
Shangri-La Air has transported 1,264 quintals of food grains to Jumla till
date, according to Goiet. Under the government quota Jumla gets a total of 8,600 quintals
of food grains. The corporation store has only 20 quintals of food grains left, said
Goiet.
Due to the unavailability of food, the 15 kilograms that the government
employees were entitled every month, has not been distributed for this month and the five
kilograms for each family has also not been distributed after Dashain.
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