NAROWAL: Hundreds of farmers blocked Narowal-Sialkot Road for traffic on Wednesday and chanted slogans against the government and the district administration over non-availability of urea and sale of the fertiliser on the black market.

A large number of farmers blocked traffic at Qila Ahmadabad Chowk as a result passengers traveling from Narowal to Sialkot, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi and other cities had to face a great deal of inconvenience.

Farmers Mohammad Ibrahim and Nawaz Malik alleged that dealers were selling urea on the black market.

Mr Malik said: “There is no crisis of urea fertiliser in Narowal district. Farmers are not getting fertiliser at the government rate of Rs1,765 but when you pay extra money, you can get as much urea as you want.”

Locals Arif Najmi and Atif Sheikh said owing to the ‘incompetence’ of the district administration, urea was being sold to farmers of Qila Ahmadabad Town at Rs3,000 per bag. They said farmers were being humiliated on the pretext of identity cards and land records. Narowal Deputy Commissioner Saba Asghar said 700 bags of urea had been given to farmers at government rate in Qila Ahmadabad Town.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2022