Minister Niranjan Reddy assures adequate supply of urea to farmers

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Friday said the Centre has assured to dispatch stocks of urea and steps have been taken to ensure that there will not be any shortage in the distribution of urea to the farmers.

The Minister said the Centre had allocated 8.5 lakh metric tonnes of urea and so far it has supplied 3.97 lakh metric tonnes. Out of this, currently, 2.12 lakh metric tonnes of urea is available in Telangana.

He said that the allocation of urea is in the hands of the Centre and it increases the quota of urea allocation based on the usage of each States.

He said that completion of the pending projects on River Godavari, including the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIS) coupled with the heavy rains in the upstream of Godavari and Krishna rivers, has brought in heavy inflows.

Following this, the extent of irrigated land has gone up manifold and to meet this requirement the State needed additional stocks of urea, he said. Niranjan Reddy said the State government had assessed the additional requirements and made a request to the Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on August 19. In addition to this, the issue has been taken up with the Joint Secretary, Department of Chemical and Fertilisers Guruveen Siddhu, he said.

The State officials briefed the official on the District-wise requirements of urea and requested to move the urea stocks from Krishnapatnam and Visakhapatnam Ports to the rack points of Telangana.

Responding to the same, Niranjan Reddy said the official concerned assured to take steps to dispatch the urea stocks to the State and asked the farmers in the State not to worry about the availability and supply of urea for the current agriculture season.