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UP faces shortage of fertilisers
Minister Ashok Bajpai blamed Centre for non-availability of fertilisers in the state, reports Umesh Raghuvanshi.
The Minister for Agriculture Ashok Bajpai on Wednesday blamed the Centre for not making available sufficient quantity of fertilisers to Uttar Pradesh.
Although Bajpai assured the House that all efforts were being made to ensure that there was no scarcity of fertilisers he failed to satisfy the Bahujan Samaj Party members who staged a walk out in Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday.
Bajpai was replying to issues raised by the members in Vidhan Sabha during hour-long debate on shortage of fertilisers. There was shortage of four-lakh metric tones of fertilisers, said the minister adding that the State Government made additional quantity of fertilisers available to farmers.
While the availability of DAP was 34.46 per cent higher against the last year the quantity of urea made available to farmers was 4.2 per cent urea higher against the last year's figures. Total availability of fertilisers was 22.5 per cent higher, he said.
Most of the members who participated in the debate however pointed out that the State Government had failed to ensure availability of fertilisers at this crucial juncture.
The BSP member Sukhdev Rajbhar said the State Government should launch a special drive to ensure availability of fertilisers to farmers.
Various agencies of State Government should be asked to regularly monitor situation, he said adding that if the State Government failed to bring an improvement the House would have to discuss suicides of farmers in days to come.
