Urea producers, dealers fleecing farmers

ISLAMABAD - Urea fertilizer manufacturers and dealers are fleecing the farmers by charging Rs 950 per bag against the government’s maximum allowed price Rs 700, TheNation reliably learnt.
Ibrahim Mughal, President Agri Forum Pakistan, said that the government was paying heavy subsidy to fertilizer manufacturers for providing the product to the farmers at cheaper rates.
“The manufacturers in other words are cheating the government by receiving huge amounts in subsidy and not transferring the benefits to the farming community as per agreement,” he said.
He also said, “All over the country urea is being sold at higher price but the government seems helpless to stop the illegal, anti-farmer and anti-country business practice.”
Market sources while talking to TheNation said the Kharif season has not started yet, but the price of the products has gone beyond reach of the growers. “What will happen when Kharif season will start and the demand for the fertilizers will increase extensively? They questioned.
Mughal said that the sugar cane, rice and cotton crops would be cultivated approximately on an area of 17 million acres and that would require at least 2 million tons of urea fertilizer.
He said that the producers and dealers were creating artificial shortage of the product to increase its price in the market. He also warned that situation would worsen if the government did not intervene at the moment.
He said that the government was providing gas (basic ingredient of urea) to the manufacturers at subsidized rates with the condition that the price of the item would not increase for ten years. He said, “All this is in vane when the government does not have the powers to implement its decisions.
Some other market sources said that the urea fertilizer manufacturers were making huge profits at the moment by decreasing production and increasing their prices. The sources said that 24 per cent increase in the profits of the fertilizer manufacturers has been recorded in the stock exchange.
They said that the reason behind this scenario was the limited number of producers in the country so they had monopoly due to which they most of the time exploit the government even.
The sources said that if the government really wanted to save agriculture sector from disaster, it should import one million tons of urea immediately to counter the hoarders.
They also said that in future some more investors should be given licences to produce the product.