Expecting a big increase in the crop area, the State government is making adequate arrangements to meet the hike in the demand for urea in the State.
The Minister for Agriculture, S Niranjan Reddy said on Friday that all steps were being taken to ensure that the farmers would not face any scarcity of urea and other fertilisers.
He said the State government wrote to the Union Minister for Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar on August 19 seeking immediate release of urea quotas allotted to the State.
As a followup, the issue was taken up with Joint Secretary Ministry of Fertilisers, Gurvinder Singh in the day, said the Minister. Singh was apprised of district -wise demand for urea.
He was asked to ensure that the urea stocks available at Krishnapatnam and Vizag ports be moved to the rake points of Telangana. Singh had responded positively to the request made by the State, said the Minister.
The Centre has given an allotment of 8.50 lakh tons of urea for the season to the State and only 3.97 lakh tons of it was released so far. About 2.12 lakh tons of urea has been kept available for the farmers, he added.
He assured farmers that they need not worry about the fertilizers
In fact the area under paddy and maize, two fertilizer-intensive crops, is expected to increase in the State, thanks to good rainfall from the second week of July to August 8. All the major, medium and minor irrigation sources were full to the brim.
The State government had directed all District Collectors to make necessary arrangements for positioning adequate quantities of fertilizers in their respective districts to meet the anticipated demand in kharif and rabi seasons.