MP got more urea than its sanctioned quota in November

BHOPAL:MADHYA Pradesh’s nineday old Congress government and the Bjp-led National Democratic Alliance government are having their first moment -- and it concerns urea.

Madhya Pradesh got more urea than allocation in the month of November this year but the supply dwindled in December leading to the crisis of availability of the fertiliser, according to government officials. The Congress has accused the Centre of discriminating against Madhya Pradesh because it has an opposition party in charge; the NDA, in turn, has accused the Congress government of mismanaging distribution of urea despite enough allocation of the fertiliser.

According to data provided by the government employees, Madhya Pradesh received 4.31 lakh metric tonne of urea in November against the allocation of 3.77 lakh metric tonne i.e. 0.56 lakh metric tonne more. The amount of urea received in December so far, with just a few days to go for the month to end is not even 50% of the allocation. The urea allocated for the month of December was 3.70 lakh metric tonne whereas that received so far (as on December 22, 2018) was 1.82 lakh metric tonne. Around 0.37 lakh metric tonne of urea is in transit according to the officials.

The state has witnessed protests by farmers at several places over the non-availability of urea.

“The state government has to depend entirely on the central government as far as production, allocation and transportation of fertiliser through trains is concerned. The central government in principle agreed to increase the allocation from 3.70 lakh tonnes to 4.10 lakh tonnes for the month of December on December 6 but the state is yet to get urea even as per allocation decided earlier”, said one of the government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.