Food shortage has hit the rural areas in the district as the food depots of Nepal Food Corporation have turned empty. Though the locals are daily visiting the depots, they are compelled to return back empty-handed, said a local Hari Bahadur Thapa of Ramidanda VDC-4 in the district. The NFC had allocated 800 quintals of rice in each depot but almost all have run out of stock. Though the district NFC depot has rice stocks, most of the local depots in rural areas at Chaukha, Ghat, Ghogi and Dashera are empty, it is learnt. The district depot chief Dharma Bahadur Basnet shared that they were unable to reach the rice sacks to local depots due to obstruction of road sections in the present rainy season. The district is facing a shortage of 5,555 metric tonnes of food these days, he added. It is noted that there are 171,000 population in the district. RSS