Even as farmers in Bihar are raising hue and cry over alleged black marketing and non-availability of fertilisers, official reports say huge quantities of fertiliser are being clandestinely smuggled to Nepal from areas close to the Indo-Nepal border.
Official information received from Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) headquarters in Patna said personnel of the force have seized 8,394 sacks of fertiliser, each containing 50 kg, which
were being smuggled to Nepal from some districts of Bihar since January this year.
While 4,056 sacks of fertiliser were seized from border areas in Sitamarhi district, the SSB jawans seized 2,935 sacks from Madhubani, 530 sacks from Jainagar, 216 from
Narkatiaganj, 213 from Bathnaha, 132 from Araria, 198 from Rajnagar and 98 from Birpur, SSB sources revealed.
Meanwhile, state minister for Agriculture Narendra Singh has rubbished Opposition parties’ charge of black marketing and smuggling of urea.
The Opposition parties also accused the state government of creating an ‘artificial’ shortage of urea as it has failed to “lift the quota of urea already allotted to it by the
Centre”.
“All these allegations are baseless… wherever there is a report of irregularity or black marketing of fertilsier, the agriculture department swiftly acts on the complaint,” Singh
claimed.
Singh reported that the department had conducted raids at 585 places and seized 25,704 sacks of urea during this Kharif season and registered 92 FIRs in black marketing cases.
The minister on the other hand accused the Centre of showing a ‘step-motherly’ attitude towards Bihar over allotment of Urea for the kharif season and warned of vehement
opposition against the alleged treatment.
Singh said it was decided at talks between the state and the Centre that the latter would allot 7.25 lakh metric tonnes urea between April and August this year.
”Unfortunately, the state government has so far received 5.65 lakh metric tonnes which is 22 per cent less than the figure agreed to,” he said.
When there was not much requirement of urea during the beginning of Kharif season in April, the Centre supplied 2.03 lakh metric tonnes, he said and alleged that the Centre made available 1.27 lakh metric tonnes against the requirement of 2.10 in the month of August.
Against the allocation of imported urea for Bihar between April and August at 1.40 lakh metric tonne, the Centre supplied 20,454 metric tonne while states like Maharashtra,
Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal received urea more than the actual allotment during the period, he claimed.
Agriculture department sources further said that the department had made maxium seizure of Urea from Sitamarhi (8084) on Nepal border followed by 3275 from Muzaffarpur, 3200 from Rohtas, 2000 from Nawada, 1550 from East Champaran,
1077 from Saharsa and 1000 from Munger.
The department also cancelled licences of 76 vendors for blackmarketing Urea and suspended licenes of 170 others.
Protests by farmers against non-availability and black-marketing of urea were witnessed recently in the districts of Rohtas, Jehanabad, Gaya, Aurangabad, Samastipur and several other places.