MINISTER OF STATES IN THE MINISTRY OF CHEMICALS AND FERTILIZERS. (SHRI HANSRAJ GANGARAM AHIR)
(a): Import of urea is restricted and permitted through three State Trading Enterprises (STEs) i.e. MMTC Ltd, Indian Potash Ltd. (IPL) and State Trading Corporation of India (STC). Government of India (GOI) is importing urea for direct agricultural use through these STEs The urea imported by these STEs is sold on high seas to the Fertilizer Marketing Entities (FMEs) appointed by Department of Fertilizers (DOF) at various Indian ports for handling, bagging and marketing of imported urea in the country. GOI is also importing approximately 20 LMT urea from.
Oman India Fertilizer Company (OMIFCO) under Long Term Urea Off Take Agreement (UOTA) between GOI & OMIFCO. The import of urea from OMIFCO is made through M/s IFFCO & M/s KRIBHCO. The total quantity of urea imported on Government account during the current year upto February. 2015 is as below:-
MMTC STC IPL From OMIFCO Total 29.69 15.37 120.39 12.98 78.43
Out of total quantity of 78.73 LMT. 75.30 LMT of urea has been bagged and dispatched to the fields for sales by the FMEs.
(b): No, Madam. Adequate quantity of urea was made available to the States as per their demands.
(c): Monthly supply plans for distribution of Urea to different States are issued depending upon the projected requirement given by Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (DAC) The supply plans include indigenously produced Urea and imported Urea. The distribution (movement) of imported urea from ports to the States is done through Railways/road by the fertilizer companies/FMEs. The supply of both indigenously produced urea and imported urea is a continuous process and the time taken for supply varies depending upon the distances between ports and the rake points in the States.
(d): GOI is importing urea for agricultural use to bridge the gap between assessed demand and estimated production in the country. The quantum of import of urea is assessed by the Steering Committee of Secretaries (SCOS) with Secretary (Fertilizer) as Chairman; Secretary, M/o Commerce. Secretary. D/o Expenditure, Secretary, D/o Agriculture and Corporation; Secretary. M/o Shipping; Member (Traffic), Railway Board, as members, are empowered to decide the quantity to be imported in each cropping seasons, based on the assessed demand and estimated indigenous production. SCOS has empowered Secretary (Fertilizers) to decide the time of the imports. DOF regularly monitors the demand supply position of urea and advise any one of the STEs to enter into international urea market for import. Based on DOF`s advice, the concerned STE floats the tender into market and finalise the contracts with global suppliers for supply of requisite quantity of urea.
(e): No, Madam. The sowing of Rabi crops is attributed to many factors like availability of moisture, soil temperature, preparation of fields, availability of seeds and other inputs. The Rabi sowing of various crops (Field crops) has been achieved at 596.24 lakh hectare as on 30.01,2015 against the normal of 600.80 lakh hectare on the corresponding week last year.
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