Ensure urea for farmers, orders Sukhbir Badal

CHANDIGARH - The Punjab government Tuesday asked officials of the agriculture and cooperatives departments to ensure the availability of urea to farmers within three days.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal asked both departments to work in tandem to ensure availability of urea to the farmers for their winter crops.

Addressing a meeting of the departments here, Badal directed officials to ensure adequate availability of urea to farmers and curb any black-marketing.

“The director agriculture was asked to conduct raids to check black marketing and cancel the licences of erring dealers forthwith,” a state government spokesman said here.

“It was informed in the meeting that the central government has been requested to expedite the dispatch of urea to Punjab as demand from the farmers especially in the border belt has spurted up due to winter rains. The situation of arrival and distribution of urea was being monitored on daily basis and situation would be normalised within two days,” he added.