Imphal, April 24 2009: With Ministry of Agriculture and Corporation, Department of Fertilizer finalising the allocation of respective State quota of fertilizer for the Kharif season, Manipur would be receiving 30,000 metric tonne of Urea this time up from 20,000 metric tonne last year.

Last year, the Ministry had allotted 20,000 metric tonne of fertilizer as State quota of Manipur.

However, out of the total allocation, 16812 metric tonne could not be lifted in time, resulting in acute shortage of fertilizer.

According to an official source from the State Agriculture Department, the Ministry of Agriculture and Corporation, Department of Fertilizer has allotted 30,000 metric tone of Urea to Manipur out of 34,000 metric tonne proposed for the Kharif season.

Of the total allocation, the Ministry has also given the permission for lifting 2000 metric tonne within the current month of April.

Accordingly, the State Agriculture Department has already provided required lifting orders to 31 dealers out of the total approved 63 dealers.

Among the dealers who have been given the lifting orders 10 are from Imphal East, another 10 from Thoubal district, 5 from Imphal West District, 4 from Bishnupur and 2 from Senapati district.

Consequently, these 31 dealers have started lifting the fertilizer from Bramhaputra Valley Fertiliser Corporation Limited located at Namrup in Assam.

So far 286 metric tonne of fertilizer have been brought to Imphal while some more are on the way, the official source disclosed.

To solve the problem of shortage of fertilizer usually faced by the farmers during Kharif season as well as to plug the loopholes with regard to missing of fertilizer quota during transit, the source informed that the District Agricultural Officers would be made to submit material lifting certificate so as to confirm that the allocated fertilizer quota that had been lifted by the respective dealers reach the districts concerned.

The Director would countersign on the material lifting certificates to be submitted by the District Agricultural Officers and the same would be forwarded to the factory.

On the basis of these countersigned material lifting certificates, the dealers would be permitted for further lifting of the remaining fertilizer quota from the factory.

In consideration of the financial difficulties of the dealers in ensuring early lifting of the fertilizer, steps have also been taken up to ensure that as much quantity of the State quota of the fertilizer can be lifted as earlier as possible, the source added.

The source explained that the actual rate at which the fertilizer should be made available to the farmers is Rs 260 per bag.

However, the same rate could not be ensured last time as the transportation charge provided to the dealers by the company was very low while incurring heavy expenses on unofficial taxes along the way in bringing the fertilizer to Imphal.

This time, the transportation charge has been fixed at Rs 2094 per metric tonne.

The rate at which the company has fixed the transportation charge is Rs 4.38 per metric tonne per kilometre.

As the rate has been finalised not on the actual number of kilometres between Namrup and Imphal, the Department has communicated to the company for rectifying the same.

If the rate had been finalised on the actual number of kilometres, then the transportation charge would have been more than Rs 2094 metric tonne, and consequently, it is hoped that the price of the fertilizer would be lower, the source said.

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