The foundation stone for IFFCO’s Rs 350 crore nano urea (liquid) plant near Devanahalli was laid on Thursday, amidst chanting of mantras. Union Minister Mansukhbhai Mandaviya sat along with the IFFCO Chairman in the Bhoomi Pujan function.
The foundation stone has been laid at Hi-Tech Defence and Aerotech Park, near Bangalore. Those present on the occasion included former Union Minister Sadanand Gowda, IFFCO Chairman and Vice Chairman Dileep Sanghani and Bilbir Singh, IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi, among others.
Reaching Bangalore, the IFFCO team met DV Sadanand Gowda, former Union Minister who was instrumental in the fructification of the idea. The program is being broadcast live through YouTube even now at the time of writing of this news item.
The State government has allotted 12-acre Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) land near Devanahalli for the IFFCO’s Nano urea (liquid) project. “We will complete this project within 15 months”, according to an IFFCO statement.
IFFCO is already in the process of constructing its plants at its Kalol unit in Gujarat and also at Aonla and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh in Phase- I by 2021-22. The total annual production capacity would be initially 14 crore bottles of 500 ml, which will further be raised to 18 Crores.
In Phase-II, four more plants will be commissioned by 2022-23, producing another 18 crore bottles. These non-subsidised bottles will be sold to the farmers, without any subsidy, at a price 10% lower than the price of a 45 kg urea bag. The use of this product shall reduce chemical fertilizer consumption especially of Urea by 50% or more.
Nano Urea has been tested on over 11000 locations, 94 crops and 20 Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutes and State Agricultural Universities. The results showed that Nano urea is useful in increasing crop yield but also increases the nutritional quality.
“It is very easy to be used by the farmers. One 500 ml bottle of Nano Urea is sufficient for spraying two times over an acre of field. Now, instead of carrying a 45 kg bag of Urea on shoulder, farmers can easily carry a 500 ml bottle of IFFCO Nano Urea to the fields”, stressed IFFCO officials.
On commissioning, this Nano urea plant will produce nearly five crore bottles per annum for the farmers of Karnataka and South India which is equivalent to five crore bags (22.5 lakh MT) of conventional urea, the IFFCO said.
