The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Special Assistant to the Chief Mahbub Jamil yesterday said that the urea fertilizer, sugar and salt have now buffer stock against the demand in the country.

"We have no crisis of urea fertilizer now" he said at a press briefing at the Conference Room of the Ministry of Industries yesterday.

He, however, admitted that in the last fiscal year there had been a fertilizer crisis in the country due to the lack of co-ordination between the district level administration and private dealers. However, media reports from across the country say farmers are neither get adequate quantity of fertilizer on time nor in subsidised price despite the government's claim for the stock and the distribution in 'fair' price.

Refraining from elaborating the ground reality of fertiliser crisis, the Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser said "We are taking step to sign an inter-state level agreement with the Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar for five years to tackle the fertilizer crisis, the Special Assistant said," he mentioned.

Besides, the Government also finalises to sign with an agreement with Morocco to import the raw materials for TSP and DFP fertilizer, he informed.

A three member delegation led by the Industry Secretary Nurul Amin would go to the three countries to make deals to be in force for five years, he said.

He hoped that Bangladesh would not face fertilizer crisis for next five years after resumption of Ghorashal fertilizer factory within June and completing the inter-state agreement with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Morocco.

Jamil said, "We had to reel from the crisis last year as the private importers failed to provide adequate supply. That's why the Government has started to import fertiliser on its own from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar."

The Special Assistant said that the Government has moved to set up two fertiliser factories to reduce dependence in import of urea fertiliser.

Industry Secretary Nurul Amin said that the two factories would be able to produce 11 lakh tonnes of fertiliser. One will be set up in the northern region while the other will be establishrd at Fenchuganj in Sylhet."

"The total cost to build each of the factories has been estimated at $500 crore to $600 crore," he said.

"The two new factories and the resumption of Ghorashal factory will allow production of the same amount of fertiliser that we have to import now," Amin said.

"The government has now stocked 72, 325 metric ton of Urea Fertilizer from March 31 at its godown," he informed the journalists.

The government has produced 15 lakh metric ton of Urea fertilizer at the six BCIC run Industries. Besides, it has procured 13 lakh metric ton of urea fertilizer collected from KAFCO and other countries to meet the rest of demand.