SANGHAR, July 7: After disappearance of DAP from open market, urea fertiliser has also vanished, forcing growers to buy the essential agricultural inputs at Rs730 per bag in the black-market, Rs100 more than the companies’ price of Rs635 per bag.

The companies brought down the price of urea to Rs590 per bag from Rs605 per bag a few days before the announcement of budget and again increased it to Rs635 per bag but the dealers are charging over Rs100 per bag more than the company price.

The town’s leading fertilisers dealers, Malik Sher Mohammad and Mohan Kumar said they were not responsible for the shortage of fertilisers. Dealers, who had booked thousands of bags and paid the companies through demand drafts, had been waiting for several weeks for the supplies, they claimed.

They said that they had also paid the difference in price, from Rs590 to Rs627 per bag, but even then the companies were not releasing the fertiliser.

The farmers said that the new budget 2008-09 was a cruel joke with the farming community. Instead of lowering the cost of inputs, their prices had been raised beyond the reach of poor farmers, they complained.

The leaders of Small Growers Association Mir Mohammad Nizamani, Ali Akbar and others said that a subsidy of Rs1,000 per bag of DAP had been announced.They said that the DAP was available between Rs3,100 to Rs3,200 per bag before the budget and its price went up to Rs3,200 to Rs3,500 per bag after the budget.

They alleged that the subsidy was meant for importers, manufacturers and hoarders and gave nothing to farmers. The same was the case with nitrogenous fertilisers, urea, ammonium nitrate etc, they added.

They said the AN’s officials price was Rs487 per bag but it was being sold for Rs700 per bag and above and that too was available to influential and big landlords only.

They said that the urea had become a rare commodity and the farmers had to stand in long queues like the poor people who had to wait in queues for floor these days, to buy urea.

They said that thousand of bags were required on a daily basis but there was no supply and accused that a handful of big dealers had hoarded urea to raise its price.