Govt moots pilot proj to sell urea after farmers' verification

In a bid to check diversion of urea, the government is working on a proposal that will allow selling the fertiliser only to farmers after verification, Minister of State for Fertilisers Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said today.
The Minister said a pilot project, where urea will be sold to farmers only, in this regard will also be started.
"Urea is highly subsidised so that it could be provided to farmers at cheap rates and used for agriculture purposes only, but today anyone can purchase urea, whether he is farmer or not. So we want that it should reach farmers only," Ahir told reporters here.

The minister said that though there have been very few cases where urea is being diverted to used for other than agricultural purposes but we want to completely stop that.
"After this government came to power, the diversion of urea is completely stopped as now its neem coating mandatory and then after it cannot be used for other than agriculture purpose," he said.
The Minister also said the government has been taking various steps to check the excessive use of urea as it is deteriorating soil health.

"Our aim is to at least reduce urea consumption by 15 per cent, as its excessive use is adversely impacting the soil and which is not good for farmers," Ahir said.

Urea is controlled commodity as its selling price is fixed by the government at Rs 5,360 per tonne, while the difference between cost of production and selling price is paid as subsidy to farmers.
The country's annual urea demand is 30 million tonnes, while the production is at 22 million tonnes, the rest is met through imports.