Though the government claims show no supply dearth of urea, farmers in Sherpur, Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Mymensingh, Jessore and some other farming neighbourhoods are waging movements for over a week for its non-availability and high prices.

Official and market sources attributed the localised crisis of chemical fertiliser, mainly to black-marketing, distribution irregularities, enhanced carrying costs due to fuel price hike, and lacking in district-level monitoring.

Amidst such a situation, suspension of accepting urea deliveries from Rajshahi buffer stock by fertiliser dealers for the last five days made things worse for several northern farmers. The dealers claimed urea bags were torn out and they declined to accept those.

Officials at Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) yesterday told The Daily Star the dealers have been assured of providing with urea bags intact and the BCIC would take back the torn-out ones for re-packing.

Bangladesh Fertiliser Association (BFA) Chairman Kofil Uddin Ahmed yesterday told The Daily Star though there is no supply dearth, the government's buffer stocks for fertiliser were not adequately replenished for tackling the sudden surge of urea demand in February.

"Moreover, due to the fuel crisis, trucks are now charging double fares for carrying urea from factories and buffer godowns to the retailers' level. As river channels lost navigability on key northern routes, dealers also find it hard to negotiate with rising freight charge and farmers' wrath," the BFA chairman said.

Urea is being supplied to the dealers from six BCIC-run fertiliser factories and 21 buffer godowns.

As the six state-run fertiliser factories' projected urea output of 19 lakh tonnes would fall far short of the demand of 28 lakh tonnes, the government is procuring three lakh tonnes from Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company (Kafco).

Besides, six lakh tonnes more will be procured from abroad at international price of Tk 18,000 per tonne, comparing to BCIC's production cost of Tk 6,000 only.

Contacted, BCIC Chairman Major General (retd) Imaam-Uz-Zaman denied any supply dearth in urea.

"We're providing the dealers with urea from six factories in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions and from 21 buffer godowns to Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal divisions," he explained.

The BCIC chairman however attributed the problems of fertiliser carrying and some localised problems of distribution reasons to some tensions over urea availability in certain pockets of the country.

He refuted any allegation of buffer godowns running short of urea, saying, "We have over 2 lakh tonnes of urea stocked in 21 buffer godowns."

Another BCIC official gave statistics showing that six factories are generating 9,000 tonnes of urea everyday, while the government has already procured 2 lakh tonnes from abroad and 2.6 lakh tonnes more from Kafco.

"Kafco is still providing us with 2,000 tonnes of daily urea input, while the government would soon float tender for 1 lakh tonne of urea import. Besides, a decision to import yet another tonne of urea has already been taken," a source said.

Official sources suspect a huge amount of urea is being smuggled out to Myanmar due to the big price gap -- Tk 4,800 (subsidised selling price) per tonne in Bangladesh and Tk 18,000 per tonne in Myanmar.

But the local administration in many districts reported hoarding and black marketing by a section of dishonest dealers.

Deputy Commissioner of Faridpur Mohammed Nasiruddin told The Daily Star over phone last night that police caught several fertiliser dealers in his district last month for black-marketing and they were prosecuted under the Special Power Act.

"Later we recovered the urea, meant for Faridpur, from Khulna and Bagerhat.

"As we took precautionary measures well in advance, there is no urea dearth in Faridpur. But we're hearing of some problems in some other districts because of monitoring lapses."