Naveen urges Centre to step up fertiliser allocation

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has asked the Centre to increase fertiliser allocation for Odisha saying the state has been assigned limited quantity despite having higher crop areas compared with other states.

"A comparison of Odisha with states having almost equivalent extent of gross cropped area like West Bengal, Bihar and Punjab shows that their allocation of fertilisers is much higher. Due to inadequate allocation and supply of fertilisers, Odisha has not been able to achieve the desired level of fertiliser consumption," Patnaik said in his letter to Union agriculture minister, Radha Mohan Singh.

Gross cropped area in Odisha is 9.2 million hectare (mha), compared with 9.6 mha of West Bengal, 7.9 mha of Punjab and 7.5 mha in Bihar. Gross crop area is the combination of total sown area recorded in kharif and rabi seasons.

In terms of urea allocation, Punjab, Bihar and West Bengal get more than 1.5 million tonne per year, while Odisha share is a little over half a million tonne.

"While the allocation of fertilisers itself remains low compared to our demand, we have invariably observed that the state receives only about 80 per cent of the urea allocated, especially during the kharif season. Very often, the supply schedule also fails to match the peak demand period resulting in scarcity of fertilisers which, at times, also gives rise to the law & order problems," added Patnaik in the letter.

Fertiliser unavailability had led to angry protests in farm belts of the state last year. The government had to ask the manufacturers to step up supply. Urea is the primary source of fertiliser used in most Indian farm land. The country produces about 22 million tonnes (mt) of urea a year and consumes a little more than 30 million tonnes. The remaining is met through imports. The price of urea, which is highly subsidised, has been fixed by the government at Rs 5,360 per tonne.

However, farmers often complain about short supply of the manure leading to jacking up its prices as dealers charge more than the fixed price taking advantage of the deficit situation. Fertiliser producers, however, contend that Odisha lacks storage capacities and often make late payment for the procurement, which is why they were shying away from providing more quantity to the state.

Patnaik said, the state government has already initiated steps to address the issues. "We have created a corpus fund of Rs 100 crore for pre-positioning of fertilizers through state agencies like MARKFED & OAIC. Besides, steps have also been taken to construct new storage godowns," he wrote in the letter. For the upcoming kharif season, the allocation of all fertilisers including urea should be upgraded to 10.75 lakh tonne instead of present allocation of 10 lakh tonne, he added.