VEHARI, Dec 27: Farmers continued protest against urea shortage across the district on Saturday. Farmers in Mailsi, Dokota, Tibba Sultanpur, Thingi and Chak-24-WB are the worst hit by the prevailing fertiliser shortage.

Farmers’ representatives say hoarders and profiteers are fleecing the poor farmers without any check. They say on the one hand the government is spending millions of rupees to mobilise farmers to grow more wheat, but on the other it is not taking any step to check black marketing and shortage of fertilisers.

They say Urea shortage will affect wheat crop and all government efforts to avoid wheat shortage in the coming season will go down the drain.

Farmers’ representatives Anwer Husain, Abdul Rasheed, Sheikh Niaz, Shaukat Husain, Ghulam Rasool and Asghar Qadri say sufficient stock of fertiliser is available with dealers, but they are charging Rs1,000 for each bag of Urea instead of the official rate of Rs650.

They say the government should immediately form farmers’ committees to distribute fertilisers across the board.

Farmer Ghulam Nabi from Tibba Sultanpur says Urea monitoring teams check only small dealers and protect big dealers. He says no big dealer or stockist has been arrested in the district over black marketing or hoarding of Urea over the last few days.

He says the district administration officials have arrested some hoarders and seized a few hundred Urea bags from small dealers, but the big fish are enjoying a complete exemption from action.

The farmers from Mailsi rural areas are still running from pillar to the post to get Urea. Revenue officials raided various storehouses in Luddan, Machiwal, Dokota and Chak-24/WB and seized more than 1,000 Urea bags, but the Urea availability situation has yet to improve.

A Urea dealer said on condition of anonymity that all big farmers bought the fertiliser beforehand and left nothing in the market for small farmers.

Kissan Board President Syed Jawed Shah says the government has failed to provide any relief to farmers. He says Kissan Board will soon start a protest campaign against ‘anti-grower policies’ of the government.

The factory rate of Urea bag is Rs625 and dealers’ commission per bag is Rs10, taking the consumer price to Rs635, but the inflated rate of Urea bag is Rs1,000.

District Coordination Officer Khuram Agha says stern action will be taken against the dealers flouting the official rates and not displaying price lists at conspicuous places at their outlets.