The Ministry of Industries has proposed the Finance Ministry to import 1.2 million tons urea on urgent basis; out of this 1.2 million tons, 7 lac tons commodity will be used in Rabi season while 5 lac tons would be stored for the next Kharif.
A senior official from the Punjab Agriculture Department told this scribe, "We have written letters to the Ministry of Industries and Commerce to import additional amount of urea for coming Rabi season. It has been proposed to import 6 lac tons urea till the coming November-December as at the time of wheat sowing the urea requirement increases".
He said that the government should import 2 lac tons urea each month, so that the country may have the sufficient quantity of the commodity in Rabi season that would start on September 15 till February 15.
Sources said that the urea prices in the domestic market have become sky-rocketing in the sense that 50kg bag of the commodity is being sold at Rs 2200 in spite of its original price that is Rs 1385/ 50kg. The hoarders are making billions of rupees and the government is behaving like a silent spectator while it was a fact that the government's negligence in importing urea before the present Kharif season has resulted in this high price of the fertiliser in the local market.
Sources revealed, "Due to the all-time high price of urea, the farmers could not use it properly during Kharif season even at the time of major crops' sowing. The country is likely to have 5-10 percent less productivity of cotton and rice due to unavailability of the fertilizer".
Pakistan Agri-forum has written a letter to the Prime Minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani requesting him to issue a directive regarding the import of 35 million bags of DAP fertiliser and 70 million bags urea to be used in Rabi. Ibrahim K Mughal, Chairman Agri-forum told this scribe that almost 40 million bags of urea should be manufactured locally while the rest of 30 million bags should be imported immediately before the arrival of Rabi.
He said that the unavailability of the fertilisers is likely to affect the productivity of Kharif crops but to avoid any such risk in Rabi especially for wheat crop, it has become the utmost responsibility of the government to import urea on immediate basis.