M F AHMED
Daltonganj, Oct 21: Farmers across the state cry foul over the availability and sale of the most sought fertilizer-urea, but government’s raids and inspections on the retailers and wholesalers of fertilizers altogether tell a different tale, said the sources.
Lagatar24.com has retrieved a copy of the list of raids and inspections till September 2021that were conducted across the state on the retail and wholesale shops of the fertilizers etc., which does not corroborate the noises of the farmers that there is any huge crisis of the fertilizers even remotely.
This leaves us with a multi dollar question. Is farmers’ clamour for fertilizers an overblown thing or something is wrong with the raids and inspections?
Lagatar.com leaves it to the farmers and the government.
A total of 632 raids and inspections were conducted till September in Jharkhand, read the official note. 125 raids were done in Ranchi, 45 in Gumla, 30 in Garhwa, 5 in Latehar, 18 in Simdega, 20 in Chatra, 15 in Giridih, 48 in Koderma and many more.
It resulted in 34 suspensions, 10 cancellations, legal actions initiated against 5 and some 30 miscellaneous actions against the retailers and the whole sellers of the fertilizers only till September.
Secretary of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Cooperative Department, Abu Bakar Siddique who is also the Chairman of the Organic Farming Authority of Jharkhand, said, “Instructions have been given to all the districts to keep a close tab on the fertilizers and under no circumstances any farmer should have any problem in buying the fertilizer.”
He further added that it was only this Wednesday, October 20, that the instructions for surprise raids which were conducted were given to respective DCs of the districts. He agreed that there is a need to check the shipping of Jharkhand’s urea to Bihar as of now.
Sadar SDO Rajesh Kumar Sah in Daltonganj said on Tuesday night that he got a message from DC Shashi Ranjan to ensure raids and inspections in ‘one go’ on Wednesday and it was done by him and his teams in the blocks falling under the sadar sub division.
Sah said that he raided two shops and godowns and checked stock registers but no irregularity was found. He said the fertilizer sellers are under our constant watch.
Farmers have one big complaint that urea is sold at a much higher price than the MRP. A 45 Kg bag of urea is priced at 266.50 paise. They complain that the price of urea in the black market is at Rs.330, Rs.340 or even more for the same weight.
Palamu District Agricultural Officer Arun Kumar concedes such complaints do come to him as well but no farmer is ready to give his complaint in writing.
He said, “We have been requesting the farmers to text their complaints right from the shop through WhatsApp or SMS where they are made to pay more than the MRP for identifying the name of the shop with its location. But we have not received any complaint from the farmers.”
Palamu has received more than 12,000 MT of urea which is adequate to meet the requirements of the farmers but despite this, talks of scarcity are made out, said Arun Kumar.
