KATHMANDU, March 6: Consumer rights activists have demanded the government to probe over the issue of substandard rice that the government has received under the World Food Program of the United Nations to distribute to school-going children in five remote districts of Nepal.
Last month, Nepal received three containers full of 54 tons of rice through a shipment from the Nepalgunj Customs Office. Out of the total quantity, two sacks of rice were found to be moist.
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Jyoti Baniya, chairman of Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights Nepal, said they wrote to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to investigate the issue. According to him, lack of coordination betweent customs office and the Food Import-Export Quality Certification Office, Nepalgunj, created suspicion on the actual quality of the gifted food.
Baniya said the certification office was found to declare the quality of received food as substandard even without carrying out proper testing of the sample sent by the customs office. According to him, the tested sample size was also not adequate as prescribed by the law.
