KATHMANDU: India has agreed to provide chemical fertilizers to Nepal under the GTG (Government-to-Government) model for the next five years.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, India has agreed to the proposal made by Nepal for the purchase of manure in GTG between the two countries.
The letter of agreement sent by India for the purchase of GTG fertilizer was received by the Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Yogendra Kumar Karki said. “India is ready to provide chemical fertilizer to Nepal for five years. This is a great achievement for Nepal.”
Accordingly, Nepal will ensure the purchase of 200,000 metric tonnes of chemical fertilizer from India every year as per the agreement. The ministry has stated that there will be about 70,000 metric tons of DAP and 130,000 metric tons of urea.
Preparations for a MoU with India for the purchase of manure is underway, the ministry said. After the MoU, an agreement will be signed between Nepal Agricultural Inputs Company and a similar level of Indian government body.
Karki said that it was agreed that the fertilizer to be procured from India would be cheaper, high quality and available at the time demanded by Nepal. “Farmers will no longer have to suffer due to lack of manure.”
Nepal had earlier purchased only a certain amount of fertilizer from India in 2013 on GTG basis. Since then, Nepal has repeatedly initiated for GTG, but India has not agreed.
Recently, Nepal had to purchase chemical fertilizer from Bangladesh. Every year, Nepali farmers had to face crises of getting sufficient amount of chemical fertilizer.
According to estimate, potential demand for fertilizer in Nepal is about 700,000 MT of which actual supply in the year 2016/17 was 324,977 MT.
