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Kisan Mahapanchayat, a farmers’ association in Rajasthan has complained to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) alleging that growers are forced to buy nano-urea when they buy a conventional bag of urea or di-ammonium phosphate (DAP). It has sought direction to stop the practice immediately and refund the money charged from farmers.
Cooperative major IFFCO, which manufactures nano-urea, declined to comment.
In a petition to CCI, Kisan Mahapanchayat president Rampal Jat has said the commission should pass an interim order to protect farmers and consumers against forced sales. “Therefore, by submitting the application, it is a humble request that the obligation to purchase nano urea should be stopped immediately, and the amount received from farmers along with compensation should be returned to aggrieved farmers along with interest,” said Jat.
Vendors’ conditions
He claimed that vendors of fertilisers — village co-operative societies — are providing pre-existing urea and DAP fertilisers only after farmers buy nano urea. “Farmers are being forced by them to take a bottle of nano urea for every bag of normal urea or DAP. If someone buys 10 bags of DAP, he is forced to pay ₹2,400 to buy 10 bottles of nano-urea,” the farmer leader said in the petition.
Nano urea has been developed for the first time in the world by IFFCO and the government allowed its usage in February 2021 after which commercial sales started in August. Nano urea contains nitrogen particles of 20-50 nanometres in size. This is very small and one conventional urea prill, the average thickness of which is 2.8 mm, equals to 55,000 nano urea particles in size. One bottle of 500 ml costs ₹240 whereas the conventional subsidised neem-coated urea is ₹266.5 per 45 kg bag.
Even though the production of nano urea was 2.9 crore bottles (of 500 ml each), IFFCO sold 2.15 crore bottles during August-March 2021-22. IFFCO targets to produce 5.5 crore bottles of nano-urea this fiscal.
More nano urea plants
The government is eager to see nano-urea production increase to 44 crore bottles per year (equivalent to 19.8 million tonnes of conventional urea) when all seven plants in the pipeline become operational in two years.
IFFCO intends to set up five additional facilities across the country in the next 12-22 months to increase the availability. Besides, public sector National Fertilizers Limited (NFL) and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) aim to make their nano urea plants operational by July 2024. The government has also been asking IFFCO to transfer the technology to another PSU — Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizers Company Limited (BVFCL) for free of cost.
The farmer leader further alleged that Gopilal Jat of village Dodwadi in Tonk district of Rajasthan had used nano-urea in wheat crop on his 1.7 bigha land in 2021 and harvested 7.50 quintal grain whereas his previous year’s production was 18 quintals from the same land without using the liquid fertiliser.
“If there will be an increase in the production of crops and the expenditure on fertilisers will decrease due to nano urea, farmers will automatically start buying. This requires demonstration on the field and not forcible sales,” Jat said.
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