Centre allocates additional 25, 000 MT of urea to Odisha for September

Reported by Chinmaya Dehury
Bhubaneswar, Sep 18:

A day after Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik urged the Union Chemical and Fertiliser Ministry to allocate 45, 000 metric tonnes (MT) of urea to meet the demand of farmers, the Ministry today allocated an additional quantity of 25,000 MT of urea, over and above the existing allocation for the month of September to tide over the shortage of fertilisers in the state.

“As per the information available with us, against the projected requirement of 1.03 lakh MT of urea for the month of September, supply plan was issued by Department for Fertilisers for 1.08 lakh MT and 50,000 MT of Urea has already been dispatched to the state so far till September 15 during the current month,” said SK Lohani, joint secretary to Chemical and Fertiliser Ministry in a letter to Rajesh Verma, Odisha Agriculture secretary.

Lohani informed that the additional quantity of 25,000 MT of urea allocated to the state has already been assigned to various companies, which would be dispatched though 10 rakes. The consignments would reach the state by September 25, he added.

While the chief minister, chief secretary and Agriculture secretary had written letters to the Unon Fertiliser ministry urging allocation of urea, Agriculture minister Pradip Maharathy, who had gone to New Delhi to attend a meeting of state Agriculture ministers, had apprised chemical and fertiliser secretary JK Mohapatra, who was the chief secretary of Odisha till recently, of the issue.