Orissa Agriculture Minister has charged that the farmers of Orissa are not being supplied with enough fertilizers during the Kharif season.
There is a lingering shortage of fertilizers and this is not being remedied by the central government. The farmers are facing immense difficulties, the minister added.
Odisha has accused the center of creating a scarcity of fertilizers in the state. The state needs over seventy thousand metric tonnes of fertilizers by the close of this month but there are no indications the center would help the state meet its needs.
Sources say as the prices of chemical fertilizers have gone astronomically high, the farmers of Odisha are shifting to the use of urea which is comparatively cheap.
But even urea is not being supplied to the state. The central government is playing politics in the matter, sources add.
Earlier Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had dashed off a letter the Prime Minister suggesting downward revision of fertilizer prices and enough supply of fertilizers but his letter fell on deaf ears.
Meanwhile, Odisha govt is resolved to tackle rampant corruption and black-marketing in the distribution of fertilizers and it has already booked a number of erring traders and fertilizer agencies, sources claim.
