Even as nationwide lockdown has brought almost all sectors of the economy to a standstill, fertiliser sales have reached a record level during this period. The sale of fertilisers shot up by 45.1 per cent on-year in April 2020. Even in the first 22 days of April 2020, POP sale of fertilizers to farmers was 10.63 lakh MT which was 32 per cent higher than the last year sale of 8.02 lakh MT during the same period and dealers purchased 15.77 lakh MT fertilizers which was 46 per cent higher than last year sale of 10.79 lakh MT during the same period, said the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.
The effort to make the fertiliser availability seamless is due to the upcoming Kharif season. Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, D V Sadananda Gowda said that there is no problem of fertilisers and the state government has a sufficient stock of the fertilizers. He also assured that the ministry is committed to ensuring the availability of fertilisers to the farmer community before sowing time. The government had put fertilisers under the Essential Commodities Act and allowed its production to protect the agriculture sector from feeling the pain of the lockdown.
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Meanwhile, the forecast of normal rainfall has given high hopes to the agriculture sector this year. In a press conference held last week, Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that the agriculture sector is performing normally and the annual sectoral growth is estimated to be 3 per cent. He also said that the agriculture sector alone will contribute over 0.5 per cent to the overall GDP growth of the country and that’s why India’s GDP cannot shrink.