Fertiliser crisis aggravates due to bureaucratic blunder

Sri Lanka’s farmers are facing enormous difficulties amidst a tug of war between the government and private fertiliser importers over existing stocks of fertiliser.

Agriculture Minister Mahindananda A l u t h g amag e has blamed the leading import companies for holding onto their fertiliser stocks imported for the distribution during the Yala harvesting season.

He told parliament that these companies had purposely not released 102,000 metric tons of fertiliser to the market creating an artificial shortage pushing farmers into difficulty.

Companies like CIC had 21,000 mt, Baurs 8,000 mt and Hayleys 28,000 mt, he said adding that representatives of these companies were instructed at a recent meeting to release the fertiliser stocks to agrarian service centres within a week.

However the National Fertiliser Secretariat has issued a directive on 13- 05- 2021 to companies to release stocks only to agrarian service centres countrywide on an application of placing orders according to requirements of farmers with the endorsement of the director of the secretariat

As a result companies released the stocks after payments for company invoices by the agrarian service centres to bank branches in their authoritative areas.

This has resulted in the slowing down of the fertiliser distribution process during the past two months as this procedure is cumbersome due to delays in approvals and lethargic public administrative procedure.

Under this system the companies had to release small stocks of 200 to 300 mt per day to these centres, officials of these companies, separately, told the Business Times.

They added that previously they would supply necessary stocks through their 3000 plus countrywide dealer net work with streamlined procedure of distribution.

Normally they used to supply 1000 -15000 mt per day, five times more than the quantity released by them during the past two months.

This was the reason for the delay in the supply and stock piling of fertiliser at their stores complexes, they pointed out claiming that the minister’s allegations of restraining the release of stocks were baseless.

If the present system i n t roduced by the National Fer t i l i s e r Secretariat is enforced further, the present fertiliser crisis will continue, it was revealed.