Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shipping, Road Transport & Highways, Shri Mansukh L. Mandaviya, in written replies to two questions in Lok Sabha today, said that the availability of fertilizers far exceeds their requirement in the country. Nowadays, scarcity of fertilizers has become a thing of the past in the country which has been possible due to the visionary policies of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the Minister added.

While giving detailed information about the demand and supply of various chemicals fertilizers, Shri Mandaviya gave the figures of cumulative requirement/ sales and availability of Urea, DAP and NPK fertilizers for April – June 2017, which are as given below:

(all figures in LMT)

Further, Shri Mandaviya also informed the House that the supply of Urea has been more than the requirement in the last 3 years, including the current year. The figures of cumulative requirement and availability of Urea for the last 3 years are given below:

(all figures in LMT)

Describing the steps taken by the Government to prevent black marketing of fertilizers and transfer maximum benefit to the farmer, Shri Mandaviya said that Government has declared Fertilizer as an essential commodity under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and notified Fertilizer Control Order, 1985 and Fertilizer (Movement Control) Order, 1973.

Further, State Governments, under the extant provisions of the Fertilizer Control Order (FCO), 1985 have been adequately empowered to take preventive/ punitive actions against offenders who indulge in black marketing of fertilizers. Department of Fertilizers has also advised/ sensitized the State Governments for gearing up enforcements agencies under their jurisdiction for taking appropriate action against the offenders, if any. The experiment of Neem coating of Urea has played a significant role to stop diversion of Urea for industrial use which, in turn, has put a check on its black marketing to a great extent and huge amount of subsidy has been saved, the Minister informed.

Shri Mandaviya said that as a result of sustainable and long term policy initiatives and its effective implementation by the Government, the days are over now when farmers had to be in long queues for fertilizers in the country.

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VM