ISLAMABAD: Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar on Tuesday said that unlike the shortage of urea stock in the international market, Pakistan had surplus stock for Rabi season.

“Urea price per bag in the international market is around Rs11,000 while that in Pakistan is only Rs1,800, therefore the huge difference is tempting the local dealers and profiteers to hoard urea in bulk,” he said while addressing a press conference here along with Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam.

Mr Bakhtyar advised the farmers not to worry about shortage of urea as the hoarders could not afford to hold the stock for longer period.

He said actual production of urea fertiliser during last Rabi season was 3.17 million tonnes and production during

current season was estimated at 3.255m tonnes — an increase of eight per cent over last year — which was expected to go up 3.355m tonnes or 11pc higher if the Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim Limited (FFBL) was provided full gas.

The minister said that Northern Plants would remain operational till March-2022 and additional gas would be provided to FFBL which would remain operational in the next three months.

Mr Bakhtyar said production plants were showing a daily production of 20,000 tonnes of urea which meant that in the January-March 2022 period, 1.8m tonnes would be available in addition to existing mill stocks of 70,000 tonnes.

The minister highlighted that Punjab has been supplied 5pc extra urea in the first three months while in other provinces supply was even healthier than the last season.

He said in order to stop smuggling and hoarding of urea fertiliser, the government had evolved a comprehensive monitoring system to keep check on transportation of the fertiliser.

“From November 15, a web portal for monitoring of urea was launched under which all factory dispatches with dealer name, location and truck numbers are entered by manufacturers in real time. Once urea arrives, it is sold at controlled rate by the dealer under the supervision of District/Agri administration,” he explained.

Mr Imam said the country recorded a bumper wheat crop of 27.5m tonnes last year while due to better planning of the federal government, this year too production would be a record high of over 28.9m tonnes.

He said as per the target, Punjab would produce 21.9m tonnes of wheat, Sindh 4m tonnes while the rest would be produced by the other provinces.

He said keeping in view the higher prices of urea in international market, there were chances of smuggling of the fertiliser, therefore the government had taken measures to stop the smuggling.

He informed that so far wheat sowing over 96pc of total area had been completed.

To a question, the food security minster informed that prices of wheat and wheat flour in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not increased due to timely actions of the federal government.

However, due to poor planning of the Sindh government, price of a 20 kg wheat flour bag had gone up to Rs1,400 compared to Rs1,100 in Punjab and KP.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2021