There has been a widespread shortage of fertilisers in the Sunsari district for a long time due to the government’s failure in purchasing them on time.
Farmers there have complained that agricultural cooperatives have been misusing available fertiliser taking the advantages of short supply.
Farmer Bishnukumar Yadav complained that farmers had been compelled to pay Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,300 for a sack of urea while it is availiable at Rs. 850 in the district.
According to Yadav, the Loukahi Cooperative of Koshi Rural Municipality has sold fertilisers to farmers by charging additional Rs. 100 to Rs. 400 per sack.
The same cooperative a few days ago had returned more than Rs. 100 taken from the farmers two weeks ago due to pressure and warning from the government’s monitoring team.
Despite that, there are allegations of cooperatives charging arbitrary prices.
At a time when the farmers are struggling to get potash, urea and DAP fertiliser for wheat and maize, cooperatives have been taking advantage of this opportunity by selling fertilisers in black marketing. The cooperatives are getting hardly 50 sacks of fertilsier in a week.
The government has not been able to supply fertiliser as per the demand.
Another farmer Surendra Mehata said that the cooperatives were selling fertilisers on a whim as they were in short supply.
Mehata said that most of the cooperatives there were allowed to sell fertiliser and they were selling at higher prices due to a lack of monitoring.
Fertiliser is sent to the district in very small quantities as compared to the demand.
Farmers have complained that even in the government-subsidised fertiliser, there is a monopoly of agricultural cooperatives.
Fertiliser is available to the cooperatives in Itahari and Biratnagar through Agricultural Inputs Company Limited (AICL) and Salt Trading Corporation (STC).
According to the AICL, there are more than 300 agricultural cooperatives in the district.
The company said that it had been provided with fertiliser alternately from two places.
It has been found that the subsidised fertilisers have been misused by the cooperatives which have taken up dealership of sales and distribution in their working area.
There is a rule that a cooperative cannot sell fertiliser to anyone other than its area of responsibility and its members. But farmers said that most of the cooperatives are black-marketing concessional fertilisers.
Rajesh Mehata, a farmer of Inaruwa, accused the cooperatives of black-marketing the fertiliser meant for the farmers.
“Cooperatives do not give us fertiliser, they sell it to those who pay more than the fixed amount,” he said. “No one has taken any action against the cooperatives doing such business for years.”
Binod Yadav, a farmer of Bhokraha Narasimha Rural Municipality, said that the chairman of the cooperatives used to collect fertiliser arbitrarily.
“The chairman keeps as much as he wants and sells to the person he likes by charging more money,” he said.
Source : TRN,
