Subsidised fertilisers being traded illegally in Sarlahi

By Our Correspondent,Sarlahi, June 29: The subsidised fertilisers distributed by the Agricultural Inputs Company Limited in Sarlahi have been found sold in the black market. 

The AICL has been distributing subsidised fertilisers to farmers through cooperatives. It has been found that there is widespread practice of selling fertilisers in the black market. 

Barahathawa Municipality of the district has set a price for the cooperatives within the municipality to sell the urea fertiliser of the AICL at Rs 1,100 per sack (50 kgs), but it has been found that the cooperatives are selling it to the farmers at the rtae up to Rs 1, 250 per sack.

Devendra Rai, a farmer of Barahathawa Municipality-15, said that he paid Rs. 1,250 while purchasing a sack of urea fertilisers from Baba Udduddhinath Cooperative of the village.

Farmers have complained that the subsidised fertilisers distributed to the cooperatives by AICL are kept in private shops in Barahathawa, Basbariya and other places and sold at higher prices.

At a time when they need fertilisers to use in paddy and sugarcane fields, farmers have been hit hard due to the illegal trade of chemical fertilisers.

Dhruba Sah, acting chief of Agricultural Inputs Company Limited, Nawalpur, said that the main responsibility of the municipality was to monitor the distribution of subsidised fertilisers. 

He said that as the farmers have more faith in the fertilisers of the AICL, complaints have started pouring in that the farmers were being cheated by selling and distributing other fertilisers by keeping them in the sacks of the AICL.

Meanwhile, the District Administration Office, Sarlahi, said that its attention was drawn over the complaints that some cooperatives and dealers were selling the fertilisers in black market by charging high prices to farmers and creating an artificial shortage of the subsidised chemical fertilisers. 

Assistant Chief District Officer Hom Prasad Ghimire issued a notice on Thursday and mentioned that cooperatives and dealers involved in the black marketing of chemical fertilisers will be punished.

The district administration office said that coordination was being done with the Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives of Madhes Province to address the shortage of chemical fertilisers and to allocate additional quota for the district.