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Sardar Sarovar to boost fertilisers mart

Consumption seen growing 64% in next five years

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Mitul Thakkar Vadodara
The Sardar Sarovar project, accompanied with the Narmada main canal that aims at providing water to most parts of the state, is expected to create enormous opportunities for fertiliser manufacturers.
 
According to a study by the state-owned Gujarat Narmda Valley Fertilizers Company (GNFC), based in Bharuch, fertiliser consumption in the Narmada Command Area (NCA) is expected to shoot up by 64 per cent to 8.63 lakh tonne per annum in the next five years.
 
Currently, the consumption stand at 5.26 lakh tonne per annum.
 
The boost to consumption is expected to come once the targeted 18 lakh hectare of agricultural land in the state is covered.
 
The state has has about 97 lakh hectare agricultural land, of which only about 32 per cent land is covered under one or other irrigation projects.
 
The Sardar Sarovar project will add 19 per cent more land under the irrigation programme, which will benefit about 3,393 villages in 14 districts in the state. The districts which will get the maximum land under irrigation are: Surendranagar, Patan, Ahmedabad, Bharuch and Vadodara. Each district is expected to get over two lakh hectare of land.
 
"The study has been conducted after taking the present consumption of fertilisers as the base. We have studied patterns of 22 important crops, such as paddy, wheat, cotton, custard and groundnut, to be produced after the Narmada project is completed.
 
"The study has been conducted in association with the state agriculture department and some agricultural universities," said R B Desai, additional general manager, GNFC.
 
Larger irrigation networks have shown higher consumption of fertilisers in many states in India. In Punjab, where about 94.5 per cent agricultural land area is covered under irrigation, fertiliser consumption per hectare is 171 kg. It Gujarat it is as low as 90 kg per hectare.
 
The same is the case with Haryana, which has over 80 per cent of agricultural land under irrigation, with consumption of 163 kg per hectare. Maharashtra, with 17 per cent of agricultural land under irrigation, consumes a mere 76 kg per hectare.
 
"Factors such as seeds, fertilizers and irrigation play an important role in agriculture yields. Gujarat has the best climate to grow maximum varieties of crops, but the utilisation of that opportunity has not been done so far due to lack of irrigation. Now, when Narmada water will be utilised, farmers will be able to take more than one crop in a year," said Desai.
 
Over 85 per cent of the fertiliser sales in the state are through co-operatives. Currently, there are 8,361 such outlets, and this number is likely to cross 11,000 in the next five years to meet the growing demand from farmers.

 
 

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First Published: Sep 18 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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