Farm secy for augmenting rabi fertiliser supply

Fertiliser ministry should bridge the current fertiliser shortfall by making all the requisite arrangements for import and supply of this vital crop input to the farmers, Agriculture Secretary Radha Singh said Wednesday.

She said the fertiliser ministry needs to make a more realistic assessment of its availability in the country.

"Fertiliser ministry tends to include even those quantities as available for the farmers which are stuck up in the godowns, being loaded in the rakes or are still in the pipeline. They should at least make a 10% provision for these quantities while arriving at the supply situation," Singh told CRISIL Marketwire.

She said the Cabinet Secretary B. K. Chaturvedi had taken a meeting to review the situation last week where both the ministries put forth their point of view.

The fertiliser ministry conceded there was a shortage of di-ammonia phosphate (DAP), particularly in Uttar Pradesh where the shortfall was to the tune of 100,000 tonnes. But Singh said her ministry's assessment was that the shortage was much higher.

Lower availability had also been reported from Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.

She said DAP was the base fertiliser whose application was required during the time of sowing of a crop for providing more micronutrients in the soil and time for its spraying was now more or less over.

During the meeting, it was decided that fertiliser ministry should now focus on supply of Urea and Muriate of Potash (MoP), Singh said.

MoP is mostly imported and these must take place with a sense of urgency for their timely availability to the farmers, she pointed out.

"MoP supply is also pretty tight and just slightly more than the requirement. We are on the margins and stocks need to be augmented," she added.

Agriculture Ministry feels that due to drought in some or the other part of the country for the past few years, fertiliser consumption had been on a relatively lower side.

This year, due to rains in late August and first week of September, farmers went in for early sowing of rabi crops. This spurred the demand for fertilisers.

Singh said availability of fertilisers is not to be seen in terms of the aggregate availability for the entire season but from month-to-month.

There is no point in a quantum of fertilisers being available in December when they were required in September, she added.