Odisha urges Centre to open 3 new rake points

Odisha government has urged the Centre to open three new rake points and develop infrastructure in the existing ones for smooth supply of agri products in the state.
In a letter to Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertiliser Ananth Kumar, state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said: "The state government has proposed establishment of three new rake points at Bamur (Angul), Rengali (Sambalpur) and Dunguripalli (Subarnapur) and provision of two point rakes in six places."
"To ensure smooth supply of fertilisers to various places in the state, we need to have sufficient number of railway rake points," he added.
Lack of the required number of railway rake points is a major stumbling block for timely supply of the required quantity of fertilisers to the farmers, especially during the peak period, the CM said.

Besides, the state is also facing operational difficulties in the existing 21 rake points due to inadequate infrastructure facilities, he said adding that Odisha uses only 60 kilogram of fertiliser per hectare of agricultural land against the national average of 160 kg per hectare.
Odisha has set a target of increasing the fertiliser use to 90 kg per hectare in next five years, he said.

Patnaik further said with the coverage of increased area under high yielding and hybrid varieties, there is a need for enhancing the consumption level of fertilisers, both chemical and organic, to ensure sustainable crop production and higher productivity.

He also said the state government had taken various steps such as provision of corpus funds for state agencies, namely Odisha State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED) and Odisha Agro Industries Corporation (OAIC) for pre-positioning of fertilizers.
Besides, the state had also taken steps for construction of godowns at the Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) level for pre-positioning of fertilizers in order to make iy available to the farmers of the state in time.
"All such steps will require handling of a huge quantity of different chemical fertilisers at various points in the state since the chemical fertilisers are made available to the state at present from factories located at far off places like UP, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and also through ports, mostly in Andhra Pradesh," the Chief Minister pointed out.