KATHMANDU, May 20: After a ten-year gap, Nepali farmers may finally be able to get their hands on government-subsidized ammonium phosphate fertilizers again--and see a significant decrease in farming costs. That´s because two European firms, responding to a second call from the government, have this week submitted their bids for supplying 12,500 tons of the fertilizer Diammonium Phosphate (DAP), one of the most used fertilizers in the world. [break]
Officials at the Agriculture Inputs Company Ltd (AICL) have said that Midgulf International of Cyprus and Transammonia AG of Switzerland are the companies that registered the bids with the AICL. The AICL is the government entity responsible for importing and distributing agricultural imports, including chemical fertilizers.
According to Govinda Bhandari, a marketing officer at AICL, Midgulf International and Transammonia AG have said that they will charge US$ 440 and US$ 485 per ton, respectively, for delivering the fertilizer to Nepal from China.
Farmers seize chemical fertilizer in Dhading
The AICL had called a second tender on April 29, after it was found that one of the bidders had committed a fraud when making a bid on the first tender. During the first tender´s bidding process, two companies--Sirorr Mining, a local agent for TM Global of Hong Kong, and Manoj International, a Nepali company--had responded. Sirorr Mining was found to have submitted a fake bond of a bank guarantee from Nepal Bank Ltd.
Sirorr Mining had said it would deliver DAP at US$ 409 a ton, while Manoj International´s proposal was to deliver the fertilizer at US$ 502 per ton.
A little over a decade ago, in 1997, amid mounting pressure from the donor community, the government had scrapped its subsidy program. The donor community had alleged that there was rampant misuse of subsidized fertilizers in Nepal.
But with the subsidy program back and running again, the government has already come up with a pretty substantive shopping list. For the current fiscal year the government is bringing in 32,500 tons of chemical fertilizer (25,000 tons of urea, 5000 tons of complex and 2500 tons of potash) worth Rs 660 million from India. The government has also decided to provide farmers with 100,000 tons of subsidized chemical fertilizers for the next fiscal year.
And this time around, the government is more wary of running afoul of regulations. Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC) also said that in order to check the smuggling of subsidized fertilizers to India, the fertilizers would be priced 25 percent higher than the prevalent price in India.
