Fertiliser shortfall only slight

HYDERABAD: The Agriculture department on Friday clarified that its officials did not mislead chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy in connection with the fertiliser stocks available in the state but gave factual information and appraised him about the supplies. The officials said that the central government had allotted 26.79 lakh MT of different fertilisers for the Kharif season this year upto the end of August and supplied 25.17 lakh MT.In a clarification to a report which appeared in this newspaper on Friday, the commissioner of agriculture department acknowledged the fact that as against the requirement of 30.55 lakh MT as on August 31, only about 25.17 lakh MT of different fertilisers had been supplied.This resulted in short supply of 5.38 lakh MT of fertilisers.However, the opening balance of 3.65 lakh MT of fertilisers available as on April 1 this year, decreased the gap taking the available stocks to 28.82 lakh MT.Further, the commissioner said that the shortfall of 1.15 lakh MT upto August will be met in September as the state government has already requested the Union Ministry of Fertilisers and Chemicals to enhance Urea allocation from 3.5 lakh MT to 5.5 lakh MT.However, the officials ignored the fact that the actual shortfall is 1.73 lakh MT as per the latest statistics provided in the same release.The officials have failed to acknowledge the fact that only 67,000 MT of different fertilisers were supplied to Kadapa against requirement of 2.18 lakh MT resulting in shortfall of fertilisers.Only 50 per cent of about 2.75 lakh MT fertilisers required in Karimnagar district were supplied.The officials attributed the delay in supply of fertiliser to lorry strike between August 18 and 24.