Making necessary efforts to distribute fertilisers to farmers on time, says Manipur CM

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Aug. 23 (EMN): Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Monday informed the ongoing assembly session that the state authority was making necessary efforts to distribute fertilisers to the farmers on time.

Chief Minister Biren Singh was responding to a discussion arising out of a call attention motion by two opposition MLAs, K Ranjit Singh and Surjakumar Okram on the reported difficulties faced by farmers due to non-availability of fertilisers (urea) in the state.

Earlier replying to the questions, Agriculture Minister, Oinam Lukhoi Singh informed that introduction of new guidelines in fertiliser distribution such as point of sale is another factor in a time-consuming exercise that cannot be avoided on a short-cut basis and this formal process creates problems for the farmers.

Minister Lukhoi said there is also a plan in the pipeline for mobile distribution of fertilisers to farmers in different districts through concerned DCs, District Agriculture officers, elected members etc.

He said there is a stock gap of about 1.10 lakh fertiliser (urea) bags as the Centre is allocating 4.40 lakh bags out of the state’s total requirement of 5.50 lakh bags. Each bag weighs 45 kg. So far about 3.14 lakh bags of fertilisers have been received.

Lukhoi further said the actual price of the fertiliser is INR 650 per bag while the government’s subsidised rate is INR 266 per bag.

Above all, the transportation charge including loading-unloading from Jiribam,the railway station to Imphal per bag is INR 100.80. So a total amount of around INR 8 to 9 crore incurred in transportation are borne by the Agriculture department, he added.

On the charge of politicisation in the distribution of fertilisers to the different districts, he clarified that the Agriculture department works transparently and there was no such issue of stakes and black-marketing. Apart from agriculture purposes, some of the farmers who converted their paddy land as fish farms also used to collect the fertilisers, he claimed.

He also admitted the government is providing around 45 kg of fertiliser (urea) per sangam (one fourth of a hectare) against the actual requirement of 30 kg of urea per sangam as per existing norms for the welfare of the farmers.

As on August 21, about 1,87,180 fertiliser bags have been distributed while around 32,060 bags are in the custody of the district stores for distribution. So altogether a total of about 2,19,240 bags are allocated by the government for farmers of all the districts.

Later the House unanimously passed The Lainingthou Sanamahi Temple (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021(Bill No.19 of 2021) and the Manipur Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021(Bill No.24 of 2021). The House also passed The Manipur Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (Third Amendment) Bill, 2021 (Bill No.20 of 2021) and The Manipur Goods and Services Tax (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2021 (Bill No.21 of 2021) moved by Finance Minister Yumnam Joykumar.