It seemed as if Bihar stepped back in time when many of its towns saw a frightening clamor for urea last week. Even as SPs and DMs were busy tackling a serious situation agitated farmers were being convinced by Biscomaun Centre staff-members that urea is very much on the way.
In a whatsapp message sent by Biscomaun Chairman Sunil Singh, he claimed that” in the wake of an artificial shortage, open market began to sell urea at an exorbitant price of Rs 400-500 per bag. Here at IFFCO-Biscomaun centre we stuck to our price of Rs 295 triggering a mad rush”.
Biscomaun Chairman said that more than 15 districts were affected where additional police force had to be deployed. District Magistrates looked a harried lot. A rumor that price of urea will increase in January has caused widespread panic among farmers especially among farmers in Bihar, Sunil explained.
Thousands of farmers in Bihar are reported to have begun indulging in panic buying of urea stocks from centers of Bihar Cooperative Marketing Federation Biscomaun. The struggle for getting hold of urea has turned so nasty many a time that buyers indulged in violence against one another.
Farmers were seen collecting in the small hours before the Bihiya center in Bhojpur District, for example. In Bihiya,
Explaining the whole episode, IFFCO Director and a resident of Bihar Rajendra Prasad Singh said“ the govt decision to sell urea through PoS machines from January 1 has led to this scramble. He also sent a SoS to PMO which read” @PMOIndia : As a preparation for 100% Sale of fertilisers thru Posh Machine, Govt. Of Bihar has stopped sale of urea from 25th December. This has led to chaos. Doing this during peak season is foolish. There is a strong probability of law & order problem.
“Farmers are always at the receiving end. Implementation of policy changes should be done after a lot of preparation and without stopping supplies of fertilisers to farmers even for a single day”, lamented R P Singh who looks after the HR and Legal wing of IFFCO.
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