Bhubaneswar: Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment Minister, Ranendra Pratap Swain has urged the Centre to restore the previous season’s requirement of 4 lakh MT of Urea to the State. Any reduction in the supply of urea fertilizer will hamper the agriculture production in the State, Swain added.
In addition, Swain requested the Centre to release the required 75, 000 MT of MOP as the State is running short of about 39,000 MT of MOP at present.
Attending the meeting chaired by Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Dr Mansukh Madaviya, Swain said that in Odisha Nano Urea adoption is to take off and the farmers of the State prefer the traditional Urea. Hence, the usage of Nano Urea should not be imposed. This might lead to farmers’ unrest. Moreover, unlike many other progressive agricultural States, fertilizer consumption is relatively low in the State. Any attempt to push Nano-Urea might affect production because of low adoptability. However, the State is encouraging the farmers to adopt Nano-Urea progressively, said Swain.
Further, Swain said that the ceiling of assistance under the programme to 50% of the fertilizer subsidy saved under PM-PRANAM should be relaxed for Odisha as it is having a lower rate of fertilizer consumption, coupled with the problems of soil acidity (70 per cent of cultivated area) and soil salination (6 per cent of cultivated area) etc. requiring greater support for soil amelioration.
As Odisha is using less fertilizer, as such the State may not get a good amount of assistance under the scheme. So, Swain requested for more assistance from Central share.
The meeting was attended by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar and Agriculture Ministers of various States.
Dr Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretary, Agriculture and FE Department and Premchandra Choudhary, Director, Agriculture & Food Production also attended the meeting.
