Govt initiates steps to improve availability of urea

New Delhi, Nov 29 (UNI) The government today informed the Lok Sabha that certain steps have been taken to further improve availability of urea in all part of the country.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers B K Handique said each State is now required to prepare a monthly supply plan for ensuring availability of fertilizers on a month-wise, company wise and district-wise format.

Since the district and not the State is the basis of planning for fertilizers availability, the subsidy is now being paid to fertilizer companies only on reaching fertilizers to each district in conformity with the agreed Supply Plan, he added.

To ensure that fertilizer companies supplying urea are able to reach it to each district, the urea manufacturers are compensated for freight based on actual rail and road leads.

The monthly supply plans are being drawn up with minimum pre-positioning of stock for the succeeding month.

The supply of fertilizers by manufacturers/suppliers in according with the agreed Supply Plan is being monitored through a Web-based Fertilizer Monitoring System, which is able to track production, imports, dispatch, arrival and sales upto the district-level, Mr Handique said.

The Minister further said that the state governments have been advised to strengthen the State institutional agencies which will coordinate with manufactures and importers of fertilizers for streamlining the supplies, undertake assessment of demand at the block level and ensure availability upto the block level and review the dealer network in their respective States to ensure sufficient availability of dealers upto the block level.

They have also been requested to review the railway infrastructure in their States and suggest improvements required to ensure availability of fertilizers in all parts of their State.

In reply to another questiohn, the Minister said that the demand for Rabi 2007-08 has been assessed at 140.02 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) for Urea, 49.13 LMT for DAP and 19.61 LMT for MOP.

The indigenous production of urea and DAP during the season has been estimated to be about 106.88 LMT and 26.13 LMT and the requirement of MOP is totally met from imports as there are no indigenous sources for its production. The gap between the assessed requirement and indigenous availability are being filled through imports.

Mr Handique assured sufficient availability of fertilizers to sustain sales for Rabi in 2007-08 at the State level.

UNI