Construction of Hetaunda Agricultural Wholesale Market in final stage

Vinod Bhattarai of Wagmati Province Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development said that the agricultural wholesale market will be operational soon.

Agricultural wholesale market is being constructed with 70 percent cost sharing of the Directorate of Agricultural Development and 30 percent of the sub-metropolitan municipality. After the construction of the wholesale market, there will be facilities for proper storage, packing, grading, and processing of agricultural products.

It is expected that the wholesale market will solve the problem of farmers getting low prices, not getting quality produce as desired by consumers and the price difference being large. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is preparing to make an agricultural market operation procedure.

After the physical structure of the wholesale market is ready, Secretary Bhattarai said that he is working on the procedure. Sudhir Shrestha, director of the Directorate of Agricultural Development under the Ministry, said that a plan can be made before the transfer of the building.

An agreement was signed with Hetaunda sub-metropolitan city on August 14, 2077 with the goal of building a wholesale market in an area of ​​two bigha and four dhur. A year after the agreement, the construction of the wholesale market has been started. For the construction, Anak/Mountain JV Kathmandu got the contract for 300 million 87 million 62 thousand 787 rupees.

The company, which started work on June 9, 2078, had a contract to be completed by June 2081. As the deadline has been extended by 7 months, the work should be completed by November 8. But the construction company has said that it will be handed over before November.

Directorate of Agricultural Development has informed that the physical progress of the agricultural wholesale market is 96 percent. Modnath Timsina, sub-engineer of the directorate, said that only road paving and other general works are left.

Directorate is preparing to open the contract for road construction . The directorate has informed that 265 million 35 thousand 996 rupees were paid to the construction company last June and more than 2 million rupees are in the process of being paid. In the current financial year, the state government has allocated 40 million for the wholesale market.

Sub-engineer Timsina said that wholesale market, retail (retail) market, farmer's stall, administrative and canteen, cold storage and other structures will be in the wholesale market. There are 63 shutters including 40 shutters in the wholesale market and 23 shutters in the retail market. The building also has the facility of underground parking. There are up to two elevators in the same building.

This wholesale market has been built according to international standards. Let's run it in a systematic way', the secretary of the ministry Bhattarai said, 'We will make the sub-metropolitan corporation responsible for this operation.' The provincial government and the sub-metropolitan corporation have taken the belief that after the operation of the

wholesale market, a new dimension will be added to the marketing of agricultural products. It is claimed that the said wholesale market will facilitate the sale and distribution of agricultural products of the neighboring provinces and promote agricultural commercialization.