UP Agriculture Minister Requests Union Railway Minister to Reduce Station Delays

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) India (December 1: Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi has requested Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to reduce the time trains take to transport DAP fertiliser and urea to the state, according to the state minister, and there are several stations where the supply of urea is reduced by 1-2 more days due to restrictions.On Wednesday, Surya Pratap Shahi spoke with Railway Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw.The Union Minister has also promised to minimize the time between application of urea fertiliser to the destination.Uttar Pradesh is a dry state, where rabi crops are grown in 140 lakh hectares and sugarcane is grown in 26 lakh hectares.

The state is currently growing all the rabi crops.Since rabi crops are a time-bound process, there is a high demand for phosphatic fertilisers in the region at the moment.Railways play a vital role in ensuring timely delivery of fertilisers.Farmers in many districts of the state are having difficulties getting DAP easily available at the time of planting crops due to the short supply of DAP fertiliser in the rabi month of October and November this year, according to the minister.

Despite the allocation of 149,800 million tonne DAP fertilizer from the above Eastern Port in November, only 82,143 mt could be supplied and 67657 mt was left for supply.The rakes sent from IFFCO and PPL's Paradip plant will reach the destination in 8-10 days.On an average, 25 to 30 fertiliser rakes are produced each day.The Union Minister said it is vital to transport them quickly to their destination with minimum disruption, and that only then can DAP fertiliser be made available to the cooperatives in Uttar Pradesh in a batch of 10-12 racks a day, according to the demand, and that at least stabilise the fertiliser racks and direct the concerned to reach the destination quickly so that the farmers have it readily at the time of sowing of rabi crops as per their requirements.