Agri Director ensures enough urea fertilizers for effective farming
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 30 2020: Even though many activities in the State have been brought to a screeching halt due to the ongoing lockdown which was imposed to control COVID transmission, Agriculture Department is giving its best efforts to ensure that farmers get the required urea fertilizers for effective farming, said Director of Agriculture Manipur Laltanpuii Vanchhong.

Speaking to The Sangai Express at Old Secretariat, Babupara, Laltanpuii Vanchhong appealed all farmers to practice double-cropping this year to get the most out of their land.

He also said that the department will procure requisite urea fertilizers from different companies and the same will be sold to State's farmers at a subsidised rate.

Saying that the State has been procuring urea fertilizer from companies such as Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited, Indian Potash Limited and Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited every year, but for this year special request was made to Ministry of Agriculture GoI by the State Government for procuring the urea fertilizer due to the continuing lockdown, the Agri Director stated that vehicles carrying such fertilizers for the State have started heading for Manipur.

The department is considering to procure at least 7 rakes of fertilizer from the above mentioned for the State and each rake has a capacity of 150 truckloads of fertilizers, Laltanpuii Vanchhong said and lamented that a single rake capacity of fertilizers comes at around Rs 1.5 crore.

Continuing that the Department has been selling urea fertilizers at about Rs 266.80 per bag to farmers who owned land pattas, the Director pointed out that the income generated from selling the fertilizers doesn't even cover the transportation charges.

More rakes of fertilizers will arrange for the Sate and for that matter the State Government has urged to the Ministry concerned, he added.

As per report from ICAR, the State will witness widespread rainfall this year, he said and appealed the farmers to work wholeheartedly to increase crop yield.

Comment