NEW DELHI/PATIALA: The ongoing “rail roko” in Punjab against the recent farm laws has started hitting the farmers of the state hard as the country’s rice and wheat bowl now faces urea shortage, pegged at 8-9 lakh tonnes. Official data show its availability was about 33% less than the requirement between October 1 and November 19 and the gap is set to widen.
Industry sources said the situation will become unmanageable, if the state government and Centre don’t end the stalemate within couple of days. The live data of fertilizer departments show that in the past 50 days, 4.8 lakh tonnes of urea was available while the requirement was 6.5 lakh tonnes.
“The demand for urea peaks in end-November and December for Rabi crops. The state requires around 14 to 14.5 lakh tones of urea during this season and availability is 20-25%. Urea coming by 123 rail rakes (nearly 5.2 lakh tonnes) is in transit, but can’t reach,” said a senior executive of a fertilizer company.
‘10 lakh tonnes of urea needed for wheat crop in Pb’
According to the state’s agricultural department, around 10 lakh tonnes of urea is required for wheat crop.
“Around 8 lakh tonnes urea is required till December-end. We get urea from two National Fertiliser Limited plants in Punjab but each of them can supply 30,000 toones per month. We have supplied 1.7 lakh tonnes urea among the farmers so far and around 1 lakh tonne is available in the market. Nearly 15% of wheat yield may be affected, if urea is not applied to the crops within 15 days,” said G S Brar, chief inspector for fertilisers in Punjab.
Sources said a good quantity of urea usually gets stocked in September and October in Punjab when demands in other states is negligible. But due to extended monsoon this year, the demand from other states was also high. “We had little stock. The rail movement must start quickly. Punjab has only 27-28 rake points. You can’t expect all these points to accommodate only fertiliser rakes. More delay will cause greater chaos,” a central government official said.
Meanwhile, sources in the Food Corporation of India said they have limited space to store about 6 million tonnes of rice in Punjab. The total procurement is expected to touch 13 million tonnes. Around 5.6 million tonnes of rice have been stored. “If we cannot evacuate the current stock, we will face difficulty in storing more rice,” it said.