The Centre today assured farmers of adequate supply of key fertilisers this season but admitted that the availability of some complex fertilisers is "tight" due to low domestic output.
"The availability of urea, DAP and MOP is comfortable but there is some tightness of complex fertilisers because of low level of indigenous production," Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Kumar Jena said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
States have been provided 3.2 million tonnes of urea in June against the demand of 2.7 million tonnes, he added. States have sold 2.03 million tonnes of the farm nutrients last month.
In May, 2.5 million tonnes of urea have been supplied to states against the requirement of 1.65 million tonnes.
Similarly, DAP to the tune of 1.70 million tonnes have been supplied in June, compared with the demand of 1.08 million tonnes. Moreover, the Centre has provided 1.56 million tonnes in May against the requirement of 759,000 tonnes.
The Centre has also provided MOP to the tune of 518,000 tonnes while the requirement stands at 390,000 tonnes. In May, the supply was 472,000 tonnes, compared with the demand of 249,000 tonnes.
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However, the supply of complex fertilisers was out of sync with the demand. In June, states have been provided 745,000 tonnes of such fertilisers against the requirement of 812,000 tonnes.
However, the availability of complex fertilisers exceeded the demand in May. Close to 800,000 tonnes of the farm nutrients were supplied while the requirement stood at 606,000 tonnes.
The country mostly depends on imports to meet the domestic demand for the complex fertilisers.
In reply to a seperate question, Jena said there are more than two sources of supply of fertilisers in the states "to ensure the back-up supplies in case of the failure of one source".
Last year, some southern states, mainly Karnataka, had complained about the shortage of fertilisers.