Concerned over reports of smuggling of fertilisers, the government has alerted border
states and guarding authorities against illegal trade of key farm nutrients.
The Department of Fertilisers has written to Chief Secretaries of the states having international boundaries for initiating action against persons involved in smuggling of
fertilisers with the help of Central/State enforcement agencies.
Besides, authorities like Border Security Force (BSF), Coast Guards and Custom authorities have been alerted to keep strict vigil against illegal exports/smuggling of fertilisers, Minister of State for Fertilisers Srikant Kumar Jena said in reply to a question in Parliament last week.
He said there have been reports of smuggling fertilizers from India to neighbouring countries in last three years.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has also pointed out instances of fertilisers being smuggled across the border through eastern and north-eastern states.
Jena had said that instances of illegal export of Muriate of Potash (MOP) and Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) packed in the brand common salt and soda ash from Gujarat has come to notice. The consignment has been seized by custom authorities
at Kandla port.
Similarly, the government of Maharashtra has intimated that the fertiliser is being exported illegally in the name of soda ash, salt and so on, the minister had said.
The complaint was on the basis of seizure of about 4,000 bags of 50 kg (each having imprinted as soda ash but containing DAP as per testing report) from a godown in Raigad
in January 2010, he added.
He said in Karnataka, Bangalore customs have seized 1,156 tonnes of MOP from six traders recently.
The CAG report had also cited the example of seizure of 548 tonnes of fertilisers worth Rs 1.77 crore by the Border Security Force (BSF) during January to September 2008 at
India’s border in West Bengal.
Similarly, police in Chandel district of Manipur had seized 93 tonnes of fertilisers while being smuggled to Myanmar in 2008, the report pointed out.