"We have hardly 8,000 tons of urea in stock which is negligible compared to 150,000 tons of chemical fertilizers required to the farmers in the upcoming paddy season. Farmers have to face acute shortage if we can´t procure additional fertilizers on time," Shashi Raj Tuladhar, managing director of AIC told Republica on Saturday. Paddy producing districts across the country will be the worst affected from the shortage of fertilizers during the main farming season.[break]
The process to procure 30,000 tons of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) from India has been delayed by several months following the directive of then Parliament´s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on March 16 to blacklist Indian Potash Ltd (IPL), which was found to have supplied underweight sacks of chemical fertilizers to Nepal.
The government was planning to buy 12,500 tons of urea and 30,000 tons of DAP from Mineral and Mine Trading Company (MMTC) and IPL respectively in the latest installment out of the total 100,000 tons of chemical fertilizers -- 60,000 tons urea and 40,000 tons DAP -- committed by India to supply to Nepal under Import Parity Price. The government has already dispatched payment for the imports of 12,500 tons of urea from MMTC
Tuladhar said they questioned IPL representatives for the underweight sacks and are planning legal action against the Indian supplier.
Amid slim chances of procuring fertilizers from IPL, the government has requested the Indian government a couple of days back to supply of 30,000 tons of DAP through MMTC.
"We have requested the Indian government to supply 30,000 tons of fertilizers from MMTC a couple of days back," Dr Hari Dahal, spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) told Republica on Saturday.
Though the government initiated the process of selecting overseas firms to supply additional 30,000 tons of urea, 20,000 tons of DAP and 5,000 tons of potash, those fertilizers would be available only for the upcoming winter season.
Out of the total 630,000 sacks (each sack contains 50kg of fertilizer) imported from IPL earlier, 430,000 sacks were found underweight by 2 to 10 kg sparking protest from farmers demanding compensations few months back.
The government has allocated Rs 2.5 billion for the subsidy of chemical fertilizers to the farmers for the fiscal year 2011/12 to supply 150 tons of subsidized fertilizers to farmers.
Out of the total annual demands of around 700,000 tons of chemical fertilizers across the country, the government is supplying only around 150,000 tons at subsidized price to the farmers.
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