Farmers await imported urea supply

The failure of caretaker administration to finalise a mechanism for urea delivery to farmers is leading to a multibillion-rupee scandal, resulting in the plunder of money by fertiliser dealers. Already, the government has imported 220,000 tons of urea costing nearly Rs30 billion, which was sent to National Fertiliser Marketing Limited (NFML) warehouses on December 25 last year. However, the imported urea has not yet reached farmers, who were supposed to receive supplies for planting the current wheat crop. Now, the food security ministry is expecting the delivery of imported urea to farmers either by the end of February or March, which will available to them in May for next crop cultivation. Earlier, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had decided that fertiliser manufacturers would lift stocks of imported urea from NFML storages to provide it to farmers at the basket price. However, the mechanism has not yet been finalised and the commodity is still stuck at NFML warehouses.