Urea Sales on Hold in State, To Restart by June

 Hyderabad: The state government has halted the sale of urea, the rabi crop season having ended, with plans to reopen sales by June when farmers begin their operations from the kharif season, that typically coincides with the arrival of the southwest monsoon.

The state has a stock of 1.5 lakh tonnes of urea. The urea sales surpassed the amount farmers purchased last year — 11.2 lakh tonnes during the rabi season this year, compared to the 10.42 lakh tonnes in the same season last season, according to official sources.

Sources said the urea app, introduced earlier this year. was in a state of suspended animation since the middle of April, but added that it would be up and running again by June.

Incidentally, when the app was launched in December last year in a bid to streamline sales in multiple tranches, as the entire requirement for a crop season is not used at once, farmers reported problems with using it. Over a period of time, the system settled down, though there were some complaints from farmers about urea not being available despite being booked on the app.

At this point of time, there is no need for concern, there are enough stocks for the kharif season to begin, and allotment for Telangana for the coming season is 10 lakh tonnes, which should be more than enough, sources said.

The actual urea requirement in Telangana — if scientifically used and applied – should be around 6.5 to 7 lakh tonnes for the kharif season. “Any more than 7 lakh tonnes of urea used, is just excessive usage,” an agriculture department official said.

To try and meet this goal of cutting down urea demand, the official added that the government had started efforts to discourage farmers from relying too heavily on urea and chemical fertilisers. “We are hopeful that these efforts will pay off and cut demand for urea during the kharif season. The department, with help from all elected representatives is already reaching out to farmers to educate them on unnecessary use of urea,” the official added.

“If this happens, then urea consumption in Kharif can see a significant reduction from the 9.8 lakh tonnes used last year during the same crop season,” the official said.

Urea situation

Official urea purchase app in suspended animation.

Likely to start working from June in time for kharif.

Current urea stock in state: 1.5 LT*.

Allotment for state for kharif: 10 LT.

2025 kharif urea use: 9.8 LT.

Government plans to peg use at 7 LT this kharif.

Last year urea use during rabi: 10.42 LT.

Urea use during rabi this year: 11.2 LT.

* Lakh tonnes

Govt concerned over excessive urea use

 The state government has expressed concern over excessive use of urea by farmers, with agriculture minister Tummala Nageswara Rao flagging the issue and calling for reducing the reliance on the fertiliser.

At a recent meeting on the state’s preparations for a possible El Nino-impacted monsoon season, Nageswara Rao had expressed concern that the near monocropping by farmers, raising a single crop over large areas, was contributing to excessive use of urea. The heavy reliance on urea, which is cheaper than complex fertilisers, was resulting in soil losing its natural nutrients and forcing farmers to rely more on chemical fertiliser. Since urea was the cheapest, this has become the fertiliser of choice, the minister had said.

Nageswara Rao had also called for immediate steps to inform farmers of the perils of excessive urea use by the agriculture department, an effort which is being supplemented by all elected representatives who too have been urged to join in this task.

Incidentally, amidst worries over India’s urea availability situation, particularly in view of the uncertainties resulting from the war between United States and Iran as a significant portion of ready to use urea, by some estimates around 25 per cent, is imported from the affected Gulf region. India also relies on imports from the same region of natural gas, which is not only a key raw material source of ammonia, but is also used as fuel in urea manufacturing plants.

While the Centre has already eased natural gas import norms and expanded sources from non-Gulf region, and announced increased allocations to fertiliser factories, the current stock, last data which was revealed in April, remains a cause for concern.

According to data from the Centre, as on April 1, India had a stock of around 55 lakh tonnes of urea. In a reply in the Rajya Sabha last year, the government had said that the annual consumption of urea in 2025 in the country was 385.52 lakh tonnes.

India urea consumption

2023-24: 357.81 LT*

2024-25: 357.26

Imports

2022-23: 75.80 LT

2023-24: 70.82 LT

2024-25**: 51.69 LT

* Lakh tonnes

** Up to Feb. 2025; all data from government reply in Rajya Sabha