Fertilizer flying Squad

Department of fertilizers has instituted a dedicated officer known as a ‘fertilizer flying squad’ to check any diversion, black marketing or adulteration of fertilizers

About 10 lakh tonnes (the worth around 6000 cr) of agriculture-grade urea (despite the need for coating) is getting diverted for industrial use every year.

The subsidized urea is getting diverted mainly to industries.

The agriculture-grade urea is neem-coated while technical-grade urea is not.

The neem-coating is removed through some chemical process and then the urea is used for industrial purposes

India’s annual domestic demand for urea is around 350 lakh tonnes, of which 260 lakh tonnes are locally produced while the remaining is imported.

The government’s annual fertiliser subsidy bill is likely to be around Rs 2.5 lakh crore during this fiscal because of high international prices.

There is an annual requirement of around 13-14 lakh tonnes of technical-grade urea for industrial usage, of which only 1.5 lakh tonnes are produced in the country.

Urea is used in various industries such as resin/glue, plywood, crockery, moulding powder, cattle feed, dairy and industrial mining explosives.