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Tarai farmers fall back on smuggled fertilisers
BIRATNAGAR, JUN 28 -
Farmers in the eastern Tarai are having to use smuggled sub-standard chemical fertilizers as the government has not been able to arrange supplies in adequate quantities.
The government has been able to fulfil only 30 percent of the requirement with the rest being made up by smuggled fertilizers.
The fertilizers imported by the Agriculture Inputs Corporation (AIC) are being distributed in the hilly region at subsidized rates. However, the Tarai does not figure in the government's priority list.
The eastern regional office of the AIC had imported 2,500 tons each of urea and DAP out of which 2,322 tons of urea and 876 tons of DAP have been supplied to Taplejung, Terhathum, Okhaldhunga, Solukhumbu, and Sankhuwasabha.
Ram Swagat Shah, acting director of the regional office, said that the Tarai was facing an acute shortage of fertilizers while the hilly region was okay.
According to Hari Regmi, regional director of the AIC, the company has a stock of 178 tons of urea and 1,624 tons of DAP which is inadequate to meet the demand of even one district. The company is also preparing to import an additional 2,500 tons of urea while the import of DAP is almost impossible due to increased prices. He added that the required quota for the hills in the eastern region has already been fulfilled.
The AIC is importing 5,000 tons of urea and 3,000 tons of DAP against the requirement of 15,000 tons of urea and 12,000 tons of DAP in the eastern region.
The eastern Tarai has a total requirement of 10,000 tons of urea and 9,000 tons of DAP. However, Regmi said that the company would be able import 2,500 ton of urea within the week. There is not a single sack of urea at the Lahan branch of the company. It has 250 tons of DAP. Tej Bahadur Karki, head of the sub-branch, said farmers are using smuggled DAP.
According to Karki, a sack of smuggled DAP costs between Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,200 while DAP provided by the AIC costs around Rs. 1,300. Similarly, a smuggled sack of urea costs Rs. 550 compared to Rs. 625 for a sack supplied by the AIC.
Similarly, the Birtamod sub-branch of the AIC does not have a sack of urea while it holds 256 tons of DAP.
Posted on: 2010-06-29 08:16
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