A preliminary meeting was recently held under the chairmanship of Kodagu District Commissioner Venkat Raja regarding the stock of fertilizer during the monsoon season with representatives of the District’s Fertilizer Companies, Co-operative Societies, representatives of the Agricultural Implement Sales Cooperative Society and Others.
In the meeting held in the Madikeri office hall, DC suggested taking action to stock the fertilizer supplied to the district and to carry out necessary checks at check posts to prevent the transportation of fertilizer to outside the district.
The DC directed that the fertilizer sellers, companies and cooperative societies should provide information to the Joint Director of the Agriculture Department from time to time regarding the demand for Urea and DIP fertilizers, and the amount of fertilizer supplied every month.
The DC said that fertilizer sellers, companies and cooperative societies should pay attention to ensure that there are no complaints from farmers, and there should be always an adequate stock of Fertilizer .
All wholesale and retail fertilizer sellers were instructed to ensure that the inventory in the POS machine and the actual physical inventory, match correctly . Otherwise, considering the uncleared inventory in the POS machine, there will be a shortage in the quantity of fertilizer coming into the district even if the actual physical inventory is less. Therefore, he instructed all wholesale and retail fertilizer sellers to get their technically faulty POS machines updated by the concerned authorities and to maintain the inventory in the POS machine as per the daily sales and to account for the actual physical inventory and the inventory in the POS machine.
He directed that all fertilizer manufacturing companies and all private and cooperative societies should be careful not to supply any kind of poor quality fertilizer to the farmers.
To effectively prevent the use of fertilizers provided to farmers at subsidized rates for non-agricultural activities, appropriate checks should be carried out at the check posts at the border areas of the district. He also instructed to seek the cooperation of the Police Department in this regard.
Chandrashekhar, Joint Director of Agriculture Department, said that there is a high demand for Urea and DAP fertilizers from farmers in the district, and in order to ensure timely availability of fertilizers to farmers, the central office has already been requested to stockpile 25% of the Urea and DAP fertilizers supplied to the district, and the Joint Director of Agriculture Department informed that a letter has been received from the central office in this regard.
The Joint Director of Agriculture said that the District Assistant Director of Agriculture (Jaridal) and all fertilizer inspectors have been instructed to inspect from time to time to prevent the fertilizers being provided to farmers at subsidized rates from being used for non-agricultural activities and if such cases are found, appropriate legal action should be taken as per the Fertilizer Control Order 1985 and the Essential Commodities Act 1955.
The President of District Agricultural Equipment Dealers’ Cooperative Association spoke and requested that it be appropriate to distribute the fertilizers stored in the Kaup to the cooperative societies as well as to private fertilizer dealers.
He also informed the meeting that due to many technical errors in the POS machines of the fertilizer vendors, it is not possible to clear the details of the fertilizer sales on the POS machines within the stipulated time.
