Officials said the government will procure 30,000 tons of Urea, 15,000 tons of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) and 5,000 tons of Potash from India to distribute the fertilizers to farmers under the government subsidy that was revised after a decade-long gap.
The government has already imported 32,500 tons of Urea, DAP and Potash from Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Ltd, an undertaking of the Indian government. A total of 10,000 tons Urea -- the last batch of the Indian fertilizer consignment -- is in the process of entering Nepal soon.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal had requested India to sell chemical fertilizers to Nepal during his visit to the southern neighbor in the last week of August.
The government need not call for tender while importing fertilizers from India as that can be supplied through Indian government-owned enterprise.“
"The cabinet meeting held recently decided to request the Indian government to sell 50,000 tons of chemical fertilizer to Nepal at International Parity Price (IPP) to avoid lengthy procurement process from overseas suppliers," Dr Hari Dahal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), told myrepublica.com.
Dahal said the ministry has constituted a high-level negotiation team led by State Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Karima Begam to negotiate with Indian officials. Other members in the panel are Keshav Adikari, a senior official at Nepalese Embassy in New Delhi, Uttam Bhattarai, joint secretary at the MoAC, Ram Krishna Shrestha, under secretary at the MoAC, and Pashupati Gautam, managing director of Agriculture Inputs Corporation (AIC).
"We are arranging dates for the visit of panel members to the southern neighbor to negotiate with Indian officials," said Dahal, who is also the chairman of the AIC, the government undertaking responsible for the production and distribution of agriculture inputs in the country.
Dahal said a consignment of 12,000 tons of DAP has arrived at Kolkata port from Jordan after more than four months of procurement process through a private contractor. However, it has been stuck in Kolkata port for the last three weeks due to some technical reasons.“
"Another consignment of 12000 tons of Urea is entering Nepal from China within a month," Dahal added.
The government has decided to distribute 100,000 tons of chemical fertilizer, about one-fourth of the total demand, to farmers under the government subsidy for the fiscal year 2008/09. The Finance Ministry has already released Rs 1 billion of the Rs 1.77 billion allocated for the purpose.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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