0.8 million tonnes of urea imported, National Assembly told

Federal Government has imported 0.8 million tons urea to fill the gap between demand and supply for Rabi 2011-12.

“The government has given Rs 32 billion as subsidy on urea while overall Rs 50 billion subsidy has been given to the farmers.

The urea requirement of the country as determined in consultation with all the stakeholders was 3.4 million tons for Rabi 2011-12″, Parliamentary Secretary on Industries Syed Haider Ali Shah told the National Assembly on Monday.During question-hour session of the House, the Parliamentary Secretary said that 0.4 million tons urea is being transported to Bin Qasim Port.

He said that his Ministry has written letters to the provincial governments to tell if there is any shortage of urea.Answering to supplementary questions of the members, he said, “It is responsibility of the provincial governments to maintain check and balance on the price and requirement of urea.

He said that it is also the responsibility of the provinces to control hoarding of urea by dealer for creating artificial shortage of fertiliser in the country.

Answering to another supplementary question of opposition member, he said that a committee of the House should be constituted to investigate if there are ghost dealers in the country and to punish the element who are involved in it.He said that import stock available with National Fertiliser Marketing Limited is 80,000 tons of urea.

He said that DAP requirement was estimated to be 0.737 million tons for Rabi 2011-12 which was to be fulfilled by private sector.

He said that it is expected that there would be a surplus of 0.079 million tons at the end of Rabi 2011-12 season.