Uttar Pradesh: A local official said the fertilizer sale process is being streamlined.
With the beginning of the sowing season for Rabi crops, long queues of farmers are being seen at government-run fertilizer centres in Uttar Pradesh, even as the Centre claims there is no shortage of fertilizers in the country.
Videos shot by journalists showed hundreds of farmers standing in long queues at centres in Hardoi (in central UP) and Aligarh in the western part of the state, with some of them claiming they had been waiting for hours for a sack of fertilizer.
In both the districts, government and police officials handed out paper tokens to farmers in an attempt to make the process of fertilizer sale more orderly.
In Aligarh, the police were filmed trying to regulate huge crowds and hand out tokens at a centre in the district's Atrauli town.
Farmers at this centre claimed of a shortage in fertilisers. Sohan Pal Singh, a farmer, said, "They are saying the stock is 360 or 400 kattas (local measurement unit). There are thousands of people (waiting to buy), how will everyone get fertilizer?"
A local administration official said some shortage was there but it has been "sorted out".
"There was some shortage but we have sorted it out. We are trying to ensure organised sale. The point-of-sale machine was facing problems so we distributed tokens to facilitate sale. We are trying our best to ensure there are no problems," said Ravi Shankar Singh, an UP government official in Aligarh.
In Hardoi, a farmer who identified himself as Ajay claimed he had been standing in queue since 4 am but received no fertilizer till late in the day.
A local official said the fertilizer sale process is being streamlined.
“We have found that apart from farmers their relatives are also coming to the fertilizer centres. We have appealed them not to crowd at such centres. We have implemented a system of tokens so that there is no black marketing of fertilizer,” said Vandana Trivedi, a senior official.
According to latest data from the Union department of fertilizers, Uttar Pradesh's overall fertilizer stock as of this morning, at 1,818 lakh metric tonnes, is at least 10 per cent more than the demand generated since the beginning of the month.