Urea shortage has hit the farmers hard in the State. With the State witnessing good rainfall in recent past bringing smiles on farmers' faces as agricultural activities have gained momentum. But the shortage of Urea has left with no other alternative but to queue up at fertilizer stores.
As per agriculture scientist urea helps in vegetative growth. Birsa Agriculture University Director Research A Wadood said, "Urea helps in growth of standing paddy plantation. As this year the paddy cultivation has increased due to good rainfall there is much demand for urea."
Sources said that last year paddy cultivation was 64 per cent, but this year the paddy cultivation has grown up to 96 per cent. This increase in paddy cultivation area has triggered much demand for fertilizers. Adding this is less supply of urea as due to lockdown there is less supply of urea from factories. However, the agriculture department claims that they have adequate supply of urea and the shortage is mainly due to black-marketing as shops are hoarding fertilizers. Manoj Kumar, Director Agriculture said that there is no shortage of urea in the State. He said, "We too have come across reports that there is shortage of urea in pockets such as in Bundu, Tamar, Rahe blocks but this is at micro level."
“We have asked our officers to intensify regular checking of urea stocks along with surprise inspections of fertilizers shops so as to keep check on black marketers," added Kumar.
As per agriculture department sale of urea is done through e-posh machines where farmers have to register their Aadhar number and other details for purchasing urea. The agriculture director claimed that we had stock of 1.90 lakh metric tonnes of urea and out of these 1.55 lakh metric tonnes of urea has been sold. If there was shortage of Urea than how could such a huge amount of urea has been sold out There is still a stock of 30,000 metric tonnes of urea which is sufficient to meet the requirements. The agriculture director claimed that they will intensify regular checking of urea at shops and if cases of black marketing are found action will be initiated against such shops. Meanwhile the agriculture department has cancelled the licenses of around 300 fertilizers shops for hoarding the fertilisers. However, it is farmers, who are still crying for shortage of urea. Fagun Oraon, a farmer at Lohardaga said, “There is a severe shortage of urea in the district.
The shops are saying that there is less supply of fertilizers due to less movement of trucks, if we don't give urea to standing paddy crops it will definitely affect yields this year