The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Sufficient fertilizer available: Rosaiah

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Monday, Sep 08, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Sufficient fertilizer available: Rosaiah

HYDERABAD: Reassuring farmers that sufficient stocks of fertilizers were available to meet the kharif demand, Finance Minister K. Rosaiah said on Sunday that the government was making advance arrangements to prevent complaints of shortage in rabi 2008-09.

In the wake of unrest among ryots in several districts owing to short supply of fertilizers, he, along with Commercial Taxes Minister K. Ramakrishna, told a press conference here that panic buying of fertilizers had led to some problems.

Urging farmers not to resort to panic buying, Mr. Rosaiah said the government had sought record supply of fertilizers to meet the growing demand following good rains.

“The impression created among farmers due to rumours about short supply has led to ryots buying more than required fertilizers. In some cases, farmers had procured fertilizers for rabi also,” he said.

The Finance Minister, who is spokesperson of the Cabinet, said so far 9.74 lakh tonnes of urea, 3.99 lakh MT DAP, 6.57 lakh MT complexes and 1.78 lakh MT of MOP were supplied to the State. The supplies touched 23.73 lakh MT during kharif covering April-August this year. The area covered was 70.37 lakh hectares.

Taking a serious note of problems facing ryots, the government had sent its proposals to the Centre for supply of 37.28 lakh MTs of fertilizers during rabi 2008-09 of which the Centre approved for 33.88 lakh MTs, he added.

Monitoring

He said the Chief Minister was constantly monitoring the situation and from time to time speaking to Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers Ramvilas Paswan. Senior officials were deputed to coordinate movement of fertilizers through rakes. Thirteen officials were drafted to districts to ensure complaint-free supply of fertilizers.

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