19 FIRs lodged, licences of 65 shops suspended
PATNA : The Champaran district administration Tuesday booked three people for their alleged involvement in the black marketing of fertilizers. With this, the tally of offenders has reached 19 in the last seven days, officials said.
According to officials, while two people were booked in Harshidih and Chirraiya in East Champaran, one case was registered in Chautarwa in West Champaran on Tuesday.
The development came after a team from Patna raided several fertilizer shops following the complaint of black marketing.
On Wednesday, East Champaran district agriculture officer (DAO) Chandradeo Prasad confirmed the registration of nine cases of black-marketing in the district so far. “The licences of 65 shops have been suspended in the past few days due to irregularities detected. During the raid at a fertilizer shop in Harshidih, 1036 bags of urea were found missing from the godown, whereas one person in Chirraiya was found selling urea above the maximum retail price (MRP),” Prasad said.
Ten cases were registered in West Champaran district for alleged black marketing of urea in the last seven days.
The two districts of East and West Champaran are reeling under acute shortage of urea due to below the requirements supply for the past three months.
According to officials in East Champaran, 5,424 metric tonnes (MT) urea was received against the requirements of 8,365 MT in June. Altogether 7,268 MT was received in July and 1,558.6 MT in August against 9235 MT and 11562 MT, respectively.
In neighbouring West Champaran, while 1,000 MT urea has been made available as against the requirement of 1300 MT in August, a total of 5,789.630 MT urea was received in July as against the requirement of 9,581 MT.
Meanwhile, Adesh Titarmare, director of the agriculture department, Patna, did not respond to this reporter’s texts for his comments despite repeated attempts.