The government will soon create an awareness programme to popularise an online Fertiliser Monitoring System (FMS) that checks illegal sale and black marketing of crop nutrients.
The Fertiliser Monitoring System (FMS), launched in 2007, tracks movement of imported raw materials, dispatch of finished fertilisers from ports and plants until the first point of retail sale, on a real-time basis.
“Not many of them are aware of this online system, so we have decided to design an advertising programme to popularise FMS,” said a fertiliser ministry official. The ministry has already received an in principal approval for the awareness campaign and has written to the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) and the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) to work out costs, the official said. The awareness will be created via newspapers and television besides documentary features, the official added.
The official revealed that the online system will alert authority if fertilisers on dispatch get diverted at any sale point from the state to the district level. Anyone from farmers to manufacturers and distributors can utilise the online facility to track the supply and sale situation of fertilisers in the country.
