January 19: Farmers have not been able to do 'top dressing' on the wheat crop as the urea fertilizer bought by the government from India through the G2G process is stored in the government warehouses. It has been almost a week since three rakes of urea arrived at the warehouse of Agricultural Inputs Company Limited in Birgunj. More fertilizer is on the way. But the farmers are complaining that they have not received fertilizer even though the government has stock of it.

Out of the 30,000 metric tons of urea supplied by India in the first lot through the G2G process, three rakes have arrived in Birgunj by Monday. Rajendra Bahadur Karki, managing director of Agricultural Inputs Company Limited, informed that the rest of the fertilizers have arrived in Jogbani. According to Karki, it is taking some time to distribute the recently arrived fertilizer as the management team is new to the company. He admitted that the farmers did not get it because of the delay in opening the market.

Bhuvaneswar Yadav, a representative farmer of Saptari, complained that even though the government has fertilizer, the farmers have not been able to top dress the wheat crop.

He said, “We have heard the news that the government is importing urea fertilizer, but none of the farmers in the village have been able to apply it to the wheat crop.” Farmers visit the cooperatives every day, but there is no fertilizer in the cooperatives either.

Nepal had entered into an agreement with India last February during the tenure of the then Agriculture Minister Mahindra Raya Yadav to bring a total of 935,000 tons of chemical fertilizers in five years through G2G. The MoU was signed by Dr Govinda Prasad Sharma, secretary of the ministry on behalf of Nepal and Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi, secretary of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India on behalf of India.