New Delhi, Sept. 18:
The
Centre has formed eight teams for 17 States to curb the diversion of
fertilisers such as urea for industrial use and prevent their black
marketing and smuggling.
Urea is highly subsidised
for agricultural use and is currently cheaper than rock salt. Cheap
availability could have possibly led to black marketing, hoarding and
smuggling of urea, which also has various industrial and commercial
applications such as producing some types of plastics, glues, animal
feed and pesticides. There are reports of it being used to produce milk,
too.
The teams, consisting of senior officials from
the Fertiliser Ministry, will review the situation on availability of
fertilisers and their use with the State governments periodically. The
teams will also look into black marketing, hoarding and smuggling of
fertilisers, besides diversion of urea for non-agricultural
applications.
“This is not a one-time affair and the
review will be done on a regular basis,” official sources said. There
has been allegation of payment of subsidy to the companies without
proper formalities, such as receipts of supply in proper quantity and
quality from the States.
The States included in the
list are Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir,
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha.
It
is reported that urea is smuggled from States such as Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar to Nepal and Bangladesh. Unlike in India, urea is not subsidised
in these countries, thereby creating vast arbitrage opportunities. There
are no official estimates on the quantity smuggled or diverted for
industrial applications.
The demand for urea is
estimated at 30 million tonnes, growing at 3 per cent annually. The
domestic production capacity is around 22 million tonnes.
The shortfall of 8 mt is being met through imports, which are likely to increase to 10 mt by 2016-17.
The
Fertiliser Ministry teams will also look into the issues relating to
quality, the sale of non-standard fertilisers, verify quantity at
godowns of dealers and companies and leakages in quantity due to
handling.
Keywords: diversion of urea fertilisers, urea consumption, black marketing, hoarding
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