Punjab Govt offers to recall DAP supplied to agri societies

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 8

The Punjab Government has offered to recall the DAP supplied to Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) by one of the two companies, whose fertiliser was found to be of substandard quality.

In a letter issued to all its district managers, Markfed, nodal agency for the distribution of fertilisers allocated to the state by the Government of India, has asked them to get the DAP stocks manufactured by a particular supplier back from cooperative societies, in case they so want.

It is also proposed that compensation be sought from the Government of India for the substandard fertiliser that has been used by the farmers, as the fertiliser was allocated to the state by the Centre. The two suppliers, whose samples had failed the quality test as regards the requisite potency of DAP, were not contracted by the Punjab Government.

Of the 22,000-MT batch of the fertiliser, allocated to Punjab by the Department of Fertilisers in the Government of India in March and April, Markfed had supplied 17,000 MT to the PACS. Of that, samples of 2,400 MT DAP had failed. “We have recalled 1,905 MT fertiliser. The supplier had also replaced 670 MT. Of the remaining 14,600 MT, we want to give an option to the PACS to send it back,” said a senior Markfed official.

As per orders of the state government, 60 per cent of that DAP stock was supplied to PACS, while 40 per cent was allocated to private traders. On suspicion that the quality of the fertiliser was poor, some samples were initially taken in Mohali district, which confirmed the worst fears of the Agriculture Department. Of the 40 samples taken from across the state, 24 had failed the quality test.