MP faces urea crisis; blames Centre

Acute fertiliser shortage, particularly urea, will make a dent in Rabi output in Madhya Pradesh. The MP government has blamed the Centre for urea crisis and senior officials in the MP agriculture department fear if crisis persisted, production might fall short by 15 per cent of the target.

Union Minster for Chemical and Fertilisers Ram Vilas Paswan has assured MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan the state urea demand would be met by next month. Police have taken control over urea distribution in some areas. Stone pelting, firing and cane-charge have been reported in Shivpuri, Gwalior and Bhind districts of the state. The shortage has reached 2.25 lakh tones.

"Although we have distributed 40 per cent more urea over the previous year, the demand has reached 7.78 metric tones against the supply of 5.53 lakh tones (as on 26 December 2006). We expect the Centre will cater to our demand" said a top official in department of agriculture.

Agriculture minister Choudhuri Chandrabhan said the MP government had informed about the urea demand but it fell on deaf ears.

MP has fixed a Rabi target of 90 lakh tonnes wheat, of 44 lakh acreage. The urea demand for October stood at Rs 2.56 lakh metric tones (supply 86,250 metric tones), November demand stood at 2.72 lakh metric tones (supply 68,361 metric tones) and December demand at 2.50 lakh metric tones (supply 1.98 metric tones).