Wild elephants go on rampage, destroying sugarcane plantations

Kanchanpur - Wild elephants straying from the Shuklaphanta National Park have gone on rampage, destroying sugarcane farming at Laljhadi rural municipality-4 in the district. 

A herd of around 20 elephants enters the village, and destroys sugarcane farming grown on five bighas of the farmland by more than half a dozen local farmers, said the affected farmers. 

The incident continues for the past week, and sugarcanes worth more than Rs 800,000 have been destroyed so far in the rampage, said local farmer Sacha Rana. 

As a result, the farmers have incurred a huge loss. "I started sugarcane farming through a bank loan. I wonder how to pay back the loan as the farming has been destroyed by the elephants," said another affected farmer Ramdas Rana. 

Their repeated calls to concerned authority to resolve the problem have fallen on a deaf ear, he complained.