Naveen Patnaik and Srikant Jena

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: Union minister of chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena today said Odisha would have no shortage of fertilisers as more rakes carrying it would reach the state shortly.

“Instead of complaining about shortage of fertilisers, the state should take steps to distribute them. By the end of this month, the entire fertiliser stock allocated to the state will reach here,” said Jena.

Jena’s reaction came just one day after Odisha agriculture minister Debi Prasad Mishra complained of shortage of fertiliser. The minister said paddy production was likely to be affected by an average of 12 per cent during the kharif season because of inadequate and untimely fertiliser supply to farmers.

Stating that it would be the endeavour of the Centre to ensure the supply of urea to Odisha, Jena said: “The availability of urea from February to the end of this month shall be 4.86 lakh MT as compared to 4.42 lakh MT supplied during February to September last year.”

Despite the low rainfall during the beginning of the kharif season, there has been an increase an increase in supply of urea by about 44,000 metric tonnes to Odisha during the same period last year. “It is estimated that around Rs 16,000 crore of subsidy is paid for supply of fertilisers to Odisha by the state government,” he said.

On August 24, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to release the full quota of urea as provided under the central allocation to the state by the end of September.

In his letter, Naveen had complained that adequate urea was not being supplied to Odisha despite special allocations by the Centre for kharif this year.