Demand: Govt imports 0.35m tons of urea

urea from different countries to ensure uninterrupted supply of urea to farmers on subsidised rates

ISLAMABAD: The government has imported 0.35 million tons of , Parliamentary Secretary for Industries, Pir Haider Ali Shah told the National Assembly on Thursday. Responding to a calling attention notice, he said that the local urea industry is not meeting the required demand of the fertiliser owing to shortage of gas, therefore, the government has imported 0.35 million tons of it. He said a 50kg urea bag is being sold at Rs1,600 in the market after the imposition of sales tax, adding that earlier, the price of the same bag was Rs850. He further said the government is bearing Rs43 billion deficit for selling urea at the subsidised rate of Rs1,600/ 50kg.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2011.