By Our Correspondent

Nepaljung, Dec :10 The much-talked-about Sikta Irrigation Project, termed as an agricultural revolution in Banke district, has finally come into operation.
According to project engineer Yek Raj Bhattarai, more than 3,000 hectares of farmland will be directly irrigated from the main canal of Agaiya.
He said that the project had a capacity to irrigate 34,000 hectares of farmland from the main canal that stretches 45.3 km from Aguiya to Jethinala.
But now in the first phase, irrigation facility will be available only in 3000 hectares of land.
He informed that the Sikta's water had now reached the farmers through the Duduwa Branch from Manpur Branch to Nepalgunj and Khajura Branch to Khajura, as well as villages to West Jethinala in the area.
Kamleshwar Godiya, a farmer of Banke Janaki VDC-3, said that he had not been able to cultivate wheat for the last six years due to lack of water, but now he was planning to cultivate wheat in 20 bighas of land.
After the availability of irrigation facility in the area, farmers are expecting a rise on the price of their land, Godiya said.
Hundreds of farmers around the canal are now busy supplying water to their fields after the water was supplied to Manpur and Khajura subdivisions of Duduwa branch.
Earlier, the water in the canal was examined twice in 2017, but the water was not released after the canal was broken. Construction of the Sikta irrigation project has begun in 2006 and by now Rs. 16 billion has been spent in it.