KATHMANDU, June 15: The government-owned Agriculture Inputs Company (AIC) said it is in a comfortable position to supply the required quantity of chemical fertilizers to farmers this paddy plantation season, which has already started with the onset of the monsoon.
The shortage of fertilizers has been a perennial problem mainly during the paddy plantation season that lasts for three months starting from May end. In the beginning of the current fiscal year, the problem was even more severe after six companies out of 11 assigned to import fertilizers to the country failed to supply the agricultural input on time.
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Netra Bahadur Bhandari, managing director of AIC, said they have 17,135 tons of Urea, 33,557 tons of DAP and 3,590 tons of Potash in stock. According to him, the remaining 19,500 tons out of 50,000 tons of Urea imported from Bangladesh will be arriving in the next two weeks. Similarly, the company is purchasing 50,000 tons of chemical fertilizers through a global tender while an additional 30,000 tons of fertilisers imported from China has already been dispatched from the source, said Bhandari.
According to the AIC, there is a total demand for 100,000 tons of fertilizers in the three months of June to August across the country. This year, the government has allocated Rs 11 billion to supply chemical fertilizers to farmers.
