BHUBANESWAR: The BJP on Wednesday accused agriculture minister Arun Sahoo of misleading people on fertiliser supply by the Centre when the State has enough stock of urea and other chemical nutrients.
Hitting out at the Minister for alleging short supply of fertilisers to Odisha, State BJP general secretary Golak Mohapatra said the Centre has supplied more fertilisers to Odisha than its requirement in the last three years.
"Shortage of fertilisers is a thing of the past after the Narendra Modi government came to power at the Centre. The allegation of Sahoo of short supply of fertilisers is baseless and politically motivated," Mohapatra told a media conference here.
Mohapatra said as per the Central government's data, the available stock of different fertilisers in the State is more than its requirement. The Agriculture Minister should have checked the stock before writing to the Centre. The State got an allocation of 6.66 lakh tonne of urea against its quota of 5.65 lakh tonne which is more than one lakh tonne, he said.
Similarly, the supply of DAP was 2.82 lakh tonne against the State's requirement of 2.20 lakh tonne. Allocation of MOP was 1.91 lakh tonne against the demand of 1.30 lakh tonne and NPK supply was 3.26 lakh tonne while the actual requirement was 2.8 lakh tonne.
The BJP leader said the urea stock available with the State till June 20 was 1.73 lakh tonne and only 21,000 tonne of urea has been sold. Since the State has a surplus stock, the Centre will deliver the nutrient in time, he added.
Though the June requirement of the State is 70,830 tonne, the Centre had made an allocation of 71,000 tonne. As per the Monday letter of Sahoo to Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers DV Sadananda Gowda, the State has received 18,690 tonne of urea so far.
Mohapatra said the State has adequate stock of DAP, NPK and MOP and there is no need to worry as the Centre is supplying fertilisers to states as per their requirements vis-a-vis availability of stock. The private dealers and PACS are creating artificial shortage of fertilisers in the market due to flawed policies of the State government, he alleged.