The District Agriculture Development Office (Dado) has announced to open a collective paddy storage centre for the displaced earthquake victims in Gorkha district.

Dado has planned to store grains during harvesting time after collecting paddies from the quake victims who have been staying at temporary shelters for the past six months.

The paddy store centres will be opened at Kaudi, Aarupokhari, Palungtar, Jaubari, Ghyalchowk areas in the district.

Dado has plans to store paddy in a safer way at 25 places in the district, said Dado chief Tirtha Kumar Shrestha, adding that farmers can store around 20 metric tons of paddy in a store.

He said the office has also started distributing metal-made store (Bhakari) in some quake-affected areas.

“As we are unable to distribute metal-made store to all, we will be collecting paddy and store it in a central collection store,” said Shrestha.

Quake victims had difficulties during harvesting season, as they lack a proper place to store paddy. The devastating April 25 earthquake destroyed 53,000 houses in the district.

The office has also said it would develop the centre as a seed bank in future. According to Dado, around 12,000 hectares of land in the district is suitable for paddy farming.

The farmers cultivated paddy in around 75 percent of land in the district this year. They said paddy farming has been affected due to drought during the paddy transplantation period.