Farmers get relief from urea shortage

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, November 28

After over two months of acute scarcity of urea due to blockage of railway tracks, farmers in the area have heaved a sigh of relief after arrival of 5,800 MT urea.

With the restarting of goods train services, two rakes of IFFCO urea reached with 5,800 MT urea, said Dr Harnek Singh Rode, Chief Agriculture Officer.

He said earlier there was around 10,000 MT urea with cooperative societies that was distributed among the farmers. The total urea consumption of the district is 33,699 MT, which can be easily met in days to come. He appealed to farmers to use urea judiciously.

As per estimates of the Agriculture Department, Punjab needs about 15 lakh tonne urea fertilizer for wheat and other crops during the rabi season. The total urea production capacity of both Bathinda and Nangal units of the NFL in the state is about 3,200 MT daily.

At a time when there is a huge gap between the demand and supply, the farmers are being allegedly pressurised by many fertilizer and pesticide dealers to purchase bio-fertilizers, including rhizobium, phosphate solubilising bacteria (PSB), azotobacter and city compost along with urea. City Compost is prepared from the garbage. However, the farmers are in no mood to buy these products.

During the time of scarcity, many farmers brought the urea from adjoining areas of Haryana and Rajasthan, paying high price and also bearing extra expenses on transportation.

Other than the urea, the farmers are facing shortage of migrant labourers from UP and Bihar in absence of passenger trains.

With the passenger trains all set to start functioning over the next two days, the labour woes of farmers shall also be addressed, said Rode.