Spl checking of top 20 urea buyers across UP

Now the top 20 buyers of urea in all 75 districts of the state would again have to face a special checking and verification process on the purchase, use and need of the fertilizer by a team of the district administration.

Additional chief secretary (agriculture) Devesh Chaturvedi had issued orders in this regard to all district magistrates, asking them to download the list of the top 20 urea buyers from the government portal for August, September and October, and undertake checking and verification of the urea stock procured by each of these buyers, informed a senior state agriculture department official. The process is to verify use and need of the urea procured by the top buyers and ensure that no misuse of the purchase like resale in black market is taking place. The verification had been ordered following a request in this regard from the union ministry of chemicals and fertilizers, New Delhi, he added.

This exercise before the allimportant sowing of the Rabi crops would be akin to the exercise taken up in August.

The district administration officials have been asked to upload the monthly verification reports on the government portal on priority by the 10th of each month, the official said.

The missive from the additional chief secretary (agriculture) also instructs the district officials to also make a copy of this monthly verification report available to the director (agriculture) of the state too.

Though the state government has not clarified the reason behind the initiation of the verification process, it is being seen in the backdrop of a shortfall in urea, the most basic nitrogen fertiliser used in agriculture, reported from different corners of the country recently. As urea is one of the staple fertilisers used by farmers, all states, including UP, are given seasonwise quota by the central government.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had both raised the issue of urea shortage in August, with Mayawati demanding that the Central government immediately look into the issue and Priyanka Gandhi demanding that the state government intervene and solve the issue.

Facing opposition allegations of scarcity of urea across the state, the state agriculture department had carried out raids on black marketeers and taken action against around 250 traders dealing in urea and other farm related products. Agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi had informed at the time that a two-day drive was carried out in 18 zones across the state under which raids were conducted against 3,119 traders and 653 samples were collected.

During the raids, licences of 158 urea traders were suspended and 15 others were cancelled. Warning was issued to 94 traders and sale of urea in 15 business houses was stopped. Six other shops were sealed. FIR had also been lodged against two traders, he had said.