Odisha to get 25,000 MT of urea by September 25

The Centre today sanctioned an additional 25,000 MT of urea for the month of September in response to Odisha's demand of 45,000 MT of urea fertiliser for farmers by the end of this month, official sources said.
The 25,000 MT of urea sanctioned by the Centre, was in addition to the state's existing allocation for the month of September, officials in the state agriculture department said.
The Centre's move came after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's letter to Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertiliser Anant Kumar yesterday.
Odisha's agriculture minister Pradip Moharathy had also taken up the matter with the Union Chemicals and Fertiliser Ministry.

S K Lohani, joint secretary to the Chemical and Fertiliser Ministry, in a letter to Odisha's agriculture secretary Rajesh Verma said the additional quantity of 25,000 MT of urea allocated to the state, has already been assigned to various companies.
The consignment would be dispatched through ten rakes and would reach the state by September 25, the letter said.

Patnaik, in his letter to Anant Kumar, had said the state was facing acute shortage of the fertiliser.
"This has resulted in a clamour by farmers all over Odisha. Against the Kharif allocation of 4,50,000 MT, till date 3,09,278 MT of urea has been dispatched to the state," Patnaik had said in the letter.

During the corresponding period of the year, 4,14,291 MT of urea was supplied to the state. This shortfall in urea was most likely going to affect the crop production adversely, Patnaik wrote to Kumar.