State Urea share found sold outside
1,500 fertilizer bags seized from Assam's tea farm
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, August 01 2012: A huge quantity of fertilizer (Urea), which is meant for making available to the farmers of the state at subsidized rate, was found siphoned off and sold outside the state.

Officials of Brahamputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation reportedly seized around 1,500 bags of Urea out of the state fertilizer quota from a tea garden at Assam.

Involvement of some officials of the Agricultural Department has been suspected in the act of selling off the Urea bags.

According to sources in Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited, after confirmation of fertilizer being sold in a tea farm, the company started verifying the trucks coming to company for lifting fertilizers.

During the course of checking the trucks, the company officials found that none of the trucks coming to lift fertilizers bear the registration numbers of Manipur and all of them have registration numbers of Assam.

Later, when the documents were checked, many loopholes were detected.

A urea bag

Accordingly, the company reported the matter to the Agriculture Department of Manipur and transportation of fertilizers by the trucks was banned in view of possible siphoning off of fertilizers from the allocated state quota.

Sources further revealed that in the latest incident took place yesterday evening, in all five trucks were given the permit to transport fertilizers from the company to Manipur.

The permit was signed by an official of the Agriculture department.

Although the Agriculture Department of Manipur was informed about it, the company has not received any response from the Department so far.

As such, lifting of Manipur's quota of Urea would be prohibited from the company.

Another reliable source informed that the Urea bags made available to the farmers of the state at subsidized rates are found to be below the average weight.

The actual weight of a bag of urea should be 50kg.However, in most cases, the bags made available to the farmers are found to be 8 kgs below the specified weight.

When contacted, Kshetrimayum Gopendro, AO, Head Quarter, Agriculture Department informed Hueiyen Lanpao that although they have received information regarding selling away of the State's fertilizer quota in a tea farm of Assam, the Department is still in the process of checking the reliability of the case.

The AO further informed that following the instructions of the Central Government to make available urea bags to farmers of Manipur at Rs 265.50, none of the dealers are willing to transport Urea from the Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation.

As such, the Director of Agriculture Department acted as dealer and started transported the requirement fertilizers.

So far, 5,928 metric tonnes of Urea out of the total 10,000 metric tonnes have reached Imphal.

Another 1,933 metric tonnes of urea are on the way and they will be reaching Imphal in a day or two.

There are 62 dealers and 200 agents recognized by the state government at present.

The urea which has reached Imphal is being dispersing to other districts.

38,977 bags have been transported to Thoubal, 19,492 for Imphal West, 30,649 for Imphal East, 3,750 for Ukhrul, 1,120 for Bishnupur, 1,600 for Churachandpur, 100 for Chandel, 3,300 for Senapati and 400 for Tamenglong has been dispersed lately, the AO added.