Centre denies any fertilizer shortage, blames on faulty distribution

New Delhi, Jan 13 (UNI) The Centre today denied any shortage of fertilizers in the country, instead it blamed it on the state governments for their faulty distribution systems for which the farmers had to face difficulties.

Giving statistics on availability of fertilizers as on January 10, 2007, Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said all the states had cumulative closing stocks at over 12 lakh metric tonnes (LMT).

Admitting increase in demand of fertilizers during the current financial year, Mr Paswan said the efforts were made to meet the shortage through increased indigenous production and timely appropriate imports and Department of Fertilizers had made adequate arrangements at ports to make the fertilizer available in time in sufficient quantities.

The minister said that his Ministry has decided to ensure the supply of fertilizers to farmers in time, the state government will be asked to maintain buffer stocks from the nearest manufacturing plants and an Online Monitoring System will be put in place for the purpose.

Mr Paswan informed that a conference has been called for on January 29 in which all the state agriculture Ministers hav been invited to submit their fertilizer demands for the Kharif and Rabi seasons, so that arrangements for imports are finalised to ensure the timely supply of fertilizers to the farmers without any hardships.

The minister further said that in different areas of the states the nearby located units would be given the responsibility of supply of the fertilizer. It will help reduce the expenses and delays in supplies. Besides, the government has decided to bear the transportation costs and increase the dealership points in the states at districts and block levels.

To keep an eye of supply by these companies, an Online Monitoring System will get underway from January 22, 2007.

On the subsidy front, Mr Paswan said in the current financial year there is a burden of Rs 34,035 crore, of which a payment of Rs 24,452 crore has already been made and to meet the payment for the balance subsidy amount, a request has already been sent to the Finance Ministry.

He also informed that during the year around 240 lakh tonnes of urea had been sold as against the production capacity of 197 lakh tonnes. The units in the country produced about 200 lakh tonnes which was more than the installed capacity. The balance requirement of 50 lakh tonnes was met through imports.

The government is taking steps to make the country self sufficient in urea production as it is anticipating its demand to rise to 300 lakh tonnes by 2011-12, he said and added that with the existing units the production can be enhanced by about 25 lakh tonnes only.

He was confident that with the revival of fertilizer units in Hazira, Jagdishpur, Dhar and other areas, there would be an additional production of 33 lakh tonnes of urea. Besides, the closed units will also be revived after a green signal from the Cabinet. These units will be able to produce about 50 lakh tonnes of urea taking the total production of urea to the tune of 300 lakh tonnes.

Mr Paswan said after Oman, the process for setting up joint ventures units in Nigeria and Kuwait has started and these two JVS will help produce around 21 lakh tonnes per annum.

UNI