International symposium on potassic fertilisers today

Ashok B Sharma

New Delhi, Dec 2: The latest scientific researches have come as a shot-in-the-arm for the domestic sugar and salt industry. These industries can now become more financially viable, if they are able to produce potassic fertilisers. Domestic production of potassic fertilisers will go a long way to lessen our dependence on imports.

At present, India imports the entire quantity of the Murate of Potash (MoP) to meet its requirements. Imports of MoP is over two million tonnes resulting in a forex outgo of Rs 1,000 crores and if no efforts are made to produce potassic fertilisers in the country, the level of imports may rise to 3.6 million tonnes by the year 2010.

Experts from all over the world are assembling in Delhi on December 3 at a seminar organised by the Potash Research Institute of India (PRII) and International Potash Institute (IPI) to discuss the possibilities of producing potassic fertilisers from various alternate sources.

Scientists at Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research Institute, Bhavnagar has already estimated that one million tonnes of potassic fertilisers can be produced in the country by recovering ‘green sand’ from sea water and sea weeds called eucheuma with the help of salt and soda ash industry in Saurashtra region and also from mineral deposits in Rajasthan. Potassium recovery from mining sources may be costlier.

Soil scientists, Nirmala Agarwal and RS Sachan of Govind Bhallav Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Uttaranchal, have stated that the sugar industry has a potential to produce potassic fertilisers from the large amount of waste it generate like bagasse, filter cake (press mud), sugar sludge, sugar effluent and distillery effluent. These wastes are about 40 per cent of the total cane crushed.