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| Fertiliser crisis grips rabi cropping in MP |
| Shashikant Trivedi / New Delhi/ Bhopal Dec 21, 2009, 00:26 IST |
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Madhya Pradesh is once again facing acute fertiliser shortage this rabi season, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has told the Centre. Soon after sowing wheat and other rabi crops urea was needed during the first watering, growers said, adding that fertiliser dealers hoarded and indulged in black-marketing to mint money from them. A few years ago, the state had faced a severe urea crisis, which had even triggered violence in some areas.
“Against the allocated demand of 760,000 tonnes of urea in December, Madhya Pradesh has been allocated only 658,000 tonnes,” Chouhan has told the Centre.
Rabi acreage is expected to cross 9.4 mn hectares this year. After a good spell of rains in October and November the rabi acreage has gone up 1 million hectares from the estimated 8.4 million hectares. “The demand for urea is growing as we are likely to cross the targeted 9.2 million hectares and it is estimated that we will touch 9.5 million hectares this year,” director, department of agriculture DN Sharma said.
However, sources in the department said the demand was much higher than estimated. “It is likely to touch 1.1 million tonnes (mt) against the state government’s estimations of 900,000 tonnes,” a source said adding, “black-marketing and hoarding has become the biggest problem in the state.”
According to Sharma, urea shortage is in the range of 400,000-450,000 tonnes but monthly allocation from the Centre is short in supply, mainly due to unavailability of racks. Only December allocation stood at 202,000 tonnes against the demand of 260,000 tonnes.
Similarly, other fertilisers like single super phosphate are also on short supply. The DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) supply is 311,000 tonnes against 400,000 tonnes demand. Similarly single super phosphate supply is 113,000 tonnes against a demand of 330,000 metric tonnes and only 25,000 tonnes of potash fertilisers have been supplied against the demand of 50, 000 tonnes.
Although joint secretary, department of chemical fertilisers and petroleum Satish Chandra has reportedly assured Chouhan an immediate supply of 100,000 tonnes of urea, he has demanded advance allocation of urea in the month of January as arrival is 300,000 tonnes short of demand. Till last week sowing of wheat has been completed on 3.83 mn hectares, pulses on 4.14 mn hectares and gram has touched a record high of 3.2 mn hectares acreage, with lentils on 624,000 hectares.
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