Arrangements
should be made for quick transport of Urea from port to farmers: Chaudhry
Parvez Elahi.
Islamabad:
(05-01-2012) Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, Senior
Federal Minister and Minister for Industries and Defence Production chaired a
meeting held to assess the supply of imported urea from Gawadar port to
upcountry. The meeting was attended by Advisor to Prime Minister on Industries
Muhammad Basharat Raja, Federal Secretary Industries Aziz Ahmed Bilour,
Chairman Trading Corporation of Pakistan Tahir Raza and Managing Director of
National Fertilizer Marketing Limited (NFML).
Federal minister directed the
concerned officials to further speed up the transportation operations and
supply of urea from the Gwadar port to all parts of the country so that the
imported urea is readily made available to the farmers. He directed NFML to
open two more points to offload urea quickly and asked the higher officials to
oversee the transportation of urea themselves. The Minister said that Pakistan
is an agrarian country with its economy heavily dependent on the year on year
performance of the agriculture sector. Therefore, keeping in view the
importance and demand of fertilizer in the country the government decided to
import 1.2 million tons of urea for the Rabi crop 2011-12 which started
arriving in the country with the start of the sowing season, he added. He said
the Government has maintained the prices of imported urea at the lowest levels.
Talking to the Managing Director,
Utility Stores Corporation (USC) Ch. Parvez Elahi said that Mega Utility Stores
should be opened at the places where there is more demand so that low-priced
quality items should be available to the people under one roof. The minister
said that the result of recent reduction in prices could be seen in the sudden
boost in the sales of USC. Praising the performance of USC he added that this
increase in sales is an ample testimony to the fact that the people repose
great faith in the superior quality and optimum costs of products at the
Utility Stores,
Earlier, the minister was
informed that the distribution of the imported urea for Rabi 2011-12 started on
the 20th November. This was the first time that such enormous
quantity of urea was imported in a very short span of time. NFML, working under
the Ministry of Industries, was confronted with a gigantic task to transport
and distribute this urea across the length and breadth of the country which it
is performing with great success. The average off-take of NFML in the previous
years was 4500 metric tons per day but during this emergency operation NFML
rose to a maximum of 18 030.25 metric tons per day. The meeting was told that
NFML has started “one window operation” to facilitate the farmers to procure
fertilizer. It was also informed that NFML will soon be expanding its
operations to Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.
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