Getting benefits from fertiliser price reductions

The price-reductions of non urea fertilisers through hikes in rates of subsidy were made earlier at an appropriate time. But the challenge remains for ensuring that farmers can get these fertilisers at the fixed prices easily and adequately. There has otherwise been no change in the system of distributing the fertilisers through the government-appointed dealers. But the problems were earlier seen created at the dealers' level from their hoarding their stocks and deliberately releasing small amounts. That led to artificial creation of scarcities thereof and sales at prices higher than the ones fixed by the government.
The reduction in the price of non-urea fertilisers, has, no doubt, been a useful major step. But for this reduction to create the desired positive impact, government will have to fine tune the mode of distribution through dealers or flush it clean of corrupt practices. Farmers in the not too distant past were seen rioting for fertilisers as dealers told them that they had none in their hands or demanded prices for them that had no relationship with the officially set prices. The government will have to be proactive in this matter well before the boro cropping season gets fully underway to thwart any similar mal-practices by the dealers.
Md Azizul Haque
Mymensingh Agricultural University