Pilot Project of Fertilizer App Successful: Tummala Nageswara Rao

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao said that the pilot project of the ‘fertiliser booking app’ had proved to be successful. Over a period of nine days, 82,059 farmers in Adilabad, Mahbubnagar, Jangaon, Nalgonda, and Peddapalli districts had purchased 2,01,789 bags of urea after booking it online.

Nageswara Rao said that a toll-free number, 18005995779, has been set up at the agriculture commissionerate for the convenience of farmers. The minister was speaking at a video conference with district collectors to review the functioning of the app and urea distribution.

Allaying apprehensions about lack of fertilisers, he said that the state has sufficient urea stocks available for for the Rabi season. While the Centre had allocated 10.4 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of urea for the rabi season, 5.7 LMT had reached Telangana. Farmers had purchased 3.72 LMT of urea this year, against 2.81 LMT in the same period last year. He said the state held 2.15 KMT of urea in stock.

The minister directed the collectors to closely monitor urea stocks in comparison to demand, and district-wise distribution, and to explore possibilities of setting up additional sales points, if necessary. He instructed them to constitute special monitoring teams at the mandal, division, and district levels for urea distribution. He emphasised that any problems arising in urea distribution should be resolved immediately and that there should be no negligence in the monitoring process.