BADIN, Jan 2: The government’s belated move to control fertiliser price in the province yielded no results as the dealers are either going on strike or are shifting the much-needed DAP, a vital input for wheat and other Rabi crops, from the market to their godowns in rural areas.

The stockists and dealers indulge in hoarding almost every year at the time of wheat sowing and the growers threaten they will launch a protest campaign against them and the government for its failure to check illegal rise in fertiliser price.

The growers condemned the government functionaries for their failure to ensure availability of fertiliser at subsidised rates. Local dealers in collusion with corrupt officers were selling DAP at Rs3,000 and urea at Rs750 to 800 per bag, they said.

They alleged that hoarders and profiteers were fleecing the poor farmers. On the one hand the government had been spending millions of rupees on mobilising farmers to cultivate more and more wheat while on the other it was not taking any step to check blackmarketing and shortage of fertiliser, they said.

They said that the shortage would have bad impact on wheat and other Rabi crops and government efforts to avoid scarcity of the grain in the coming season would go down the drain.