KAPURTHALA: With the first rake of fertilizer has brought 800-MT urea on Thursday in Kapurthala, the farmers of the district heaved a sigh of relief as now they will not face any kind of difficulties in procuring the fertilizer.
Divulging the details, Cooperative Department District Registrar Sarbjeet Kaur said that the first rake of fertilizer has arrived today and two more rakes would be coming on Sunday which will bring 1700-MT urea and there would not be further shortage of fertilizer.
She said that the district has a requirement of 14903-MT urea out of which 11117-MT is being supplied to the farmers through Markfed. She said before the resumption of trains, the district had only 1133-MT urea in its stock.
The peasantry and traders’ fraternity were a harried lot due to the shortage of urea due to halting of trains and the farmers were also forced to pay more than Rs 350 for a single bag of urea.
Satpal Manchanda, head of Pesticide Dealers Association said that some of the dealers had also paid lakhs of rupees to get the urea from Haryana and Rajasthan but failed to receive the fertilizer. He said that now, the traders are now heavily relieved with movement of freight trains has been started again.
He thanked the Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for making sincere efforts in restoring rail transport.
According to experts of the Agriculture Department, there is an immediate need of spraying urea for wheat and potato crops in these present conditions. They said that the wheat and potatoes are cultivated on 1.18 lakh hectare and 10000-hectare in Kapurthala respectively for which there was urgent need of urea.