UP to invoke NSA on urea black marketers, law agencies conduct 7,500 raids

In kharif season 2020, UP has urea inventory of 2.73 million tonnes

The Uttar Pradesh government will invoke the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against those indulging in the black marketing of urea.

Presiding over a review meeting here on Wednesday, chief minister Yogi Adityanath said his government was fully committed to facilitating easy availability of fertilisers and other agricultural inputs to farmers.

“The state government will act tough against elements, who are against the interests of farmers and are black marketing fertilisers,” he said while instructing officials to invoke the NSA in such cases.

Meanwhile, the state enforcement agencies have been conducting raids at the premises of fertiliser dealers across UP to curb irregularities in the distribution of fertilisers to farmers.

Till July 31, 2020, about 7,558 raids were conducted in the state and 2,642 samples collected for testing. Subsequently, five first information reports (FIR) were lodged under section 3/7 of the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), five fertiliser units were sealed and four fertiliser dealerships were cancelled.

Meanwhile, UP agricultural production commissioner (APC) Alok Sinha said the state government had created adequate stocks of soil nutrients, including urea, in view of the robust kharif crop sowing this year. “The state has adequate inventory of urea, which is being supplied to the respective districts. The CM has already instructed us for ensuring seamless availability of urea.”

In the current kharif season 2020, the state had the inventory of 2.73 million tonnes (MT) of urea till August against the target of 2.29 MT, which is nearly 120 per cent of the target.

Besides, the state had so far disbursed 2.04 MT of urea against 1.51 MT of the commodity in the corresponding period last kharif cycle 2019. Thus, UP distributed more than 0.5 MT or 35 per cent urea compared to last year, Sinha said adding the main factors for the higher disbursement was the conducive weather, higher acreage and good rainfall in the months of April, May and June.

At the same time, the state has stocks of 1.08 MT of diammonium phosphate (DAP), 308,000 tonnes of Nitrogen Phosphorus Potash (NPK) and 74,000 tonnes of potash, which is higher than the respective targets for the period till August 2020.

Before the covid-19 lockdown was announced in March 2020, UP agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi had said UP had sufficient fertiliser stock even as concerns were then being raised that the coronavirus outbreak in China could pose supply impediments for domestic urea availability.

Although, the domestic urea requirement is largely met with indigenous production, yet other soil nutrients, mainly phosphatic fertilisers are still imported from other countries, including China.

Some of the major Indian fertilise manufacturers are Krishak Bharati Cooperative Ltd (KRIBHCO), Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCFL), Coromandel, Kanpur Fertilizers and Chemicals, GSFC, Indo Gulf Fertilizers etc.