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R. Balaji

CHENNAI, March 21

THERE has been a significant drop in urea production, sales and consumption for the 11-month period between April 2001 and February 2002 in Tamil Nadu, according to industry sources. However, consumption of potassic fertilisers had increased significantly, they said.

The drop in urea sales was due primarily to the unseasonal rains, which had particularly affected paddy cultivation, sources said. Consumption during during the 11-month period was 7.41 lakh tonnes as against 8.38 lakh tonnes for the same period in the previous year.

With urea application normally taking place about 30 days after transplantation, the season was in the midst of a dry spell with water release from Mettur also affected. This had an impact on the Cauvery delta, sources said.

In the northern part of Tamil Nadu, another major paddy producing area, irrigation tanks had run dry by October 2001. Subsequent excessive rainfall had also affected the crop, they said. This had contributed to the drop in urea sales, they said.

However, there has not been a serious mismatch between production and consumption in the State, they said. This had mitigated the impact on the producers. The drop in consumption coincided with a drop in production by the two major urea producers in the State, MFL and SPIC. Further, there has been a drop in production at FACT also.

It may be recalled that MFL had to cut back on production because of water availability problems and technical difficulties at the urea reactor plant, they said.

The consumption of phosphatic fertilisers has not shown any significant change. Its consumption in the form of DAP was around 2.1 lakh tonnes as compared to 2.2 lakh tonnes during the previous year.

The situation was the same for the complexes also, they said.

Consumption of potassic fertilisers has increased to 3.17 lakh tonnes, up from the previous year's 2.61 lakh tonnes. The consumption of muriate of potash and complexes had increased.

The 18 per cent increase had been attributed to the low consumption during the previous year, when there had been availability problems, they said.

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