Imphal: Huidrom Vivekanta started off for Manipur’s capital Imphal from his village, Huidrom Makha Leikai, in the Imphal East district, after midnight on August 11.

His was an unusual journey that night; it was to be able to join a winding queue before a government warehouse in the city to procure two bags of fertiliser.

The 20-year-old farmer started out from home around 1 am with his friend Rody on his scooter, worried that by the time he reached the warehouse, the queue would get longer.

Vivekanta, however, could never reach the warehouse. On the way, he and his friend met with an accident. While Vivekanta died on the spot, his 18-year-old friend, Rody, was severely injured and has since been in an Imphal hospital’s intensive care unit.

On visiting his house, Sanajaobi, Vivekanta's mother, told The Frontier Manipur team, “I lost my son for two bags of fertiliser.”

Standing in queue to procure fertiliser has been a reality for farmers like Vivekanta in the five valley districts of Manipur for a while now. Such queues are due to a scarcity of government-controlled fertilisers, like urea, that farmers have been facing in the state, leading the BJP-led government to step in for its better distribution but in a manner that the farming community says has only led them to run from pillar to post.

Vivekanta’s elder brother Abung told the TFM that a day before he lost his brother in the accident, he had stood in the queue from around 9 pm in front of the government warehouse located in Imphal East’s Porompat area to buy fertiliser. As only three bags were allowed per hectare of land owned by a farmer, Abung had called his brother to join the queue to get two more bags of urea.

“I left at around 9 pm with some food and blankets to stand in the queue, there were some 130-140 people ahead of me, some had been waiting since 3 pm that day. I called up my younger brother after midnight. My last conversation over the phone with him was that he said he was on the way. After 1.30 am, I learned about the accident,” Abung told TFM.

Though the government warehouse opens only during office hours, considering the number of farmers in need of fertilisers, the queue usually gets long, leading most farmers to hurry from home to be able to beat the crowd. Typically, most have to wait for more than 24 hours in line though.

The Huidrom family does not own farming land but works in the field for a landowner from the village. They work on a daily wage basis as landless farmers. The burden of procuring fertiliser by standing on the queue fell on them, though.

Vivekanta’s widow, Puspa, holding her eight-month-old son said, “I gave him (Vivekanta) Rs 380 from my savings to get the bags but he died on the way. I don’t know now what I will do to look after my son.”

Faulty distribution process 

To get access to urea, it is not enough for a farmer to stand in the queue. While individual farmers have to stand for long hours to procure the permitted number of bags, for bulk supply of urea, one needs written permission from the state agriculture minister and a forwarding letter by the local MLA. The agriculture directorate at Sanjenthong is thronged by people holding such letters from the local MLAs and other political VVIPs seeking ‘a bulk quota’. The ‘request’ from the MLAs may amount to a thousand bags of urea and more at a time.

As per the directorate, till August 7, the 60 MLAs of the state have purchased 93,511 bags of urea and distributed them to farmers in their respective constituencies. The manner of distribution to face the crisis has been done in such a manner that the concerned MLA and his/her close workers have become the primary channel. The nitty-gritty of it is, however, still unclear as the paperwork of such distribution is yet to reach the agriculture directorate. Several farmers that TFM have spoken to have complained about ‘political influence’ and that the distribution process is ‘not fair’.

Looking at the situation, a number of civil society organisations (CSOs) of the state have also sought the supply of fertiliser to them from the directorate for distribution. Till date, some organisations have succeeded to procure at least 10,330 bags of urea for the purpose.

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As per the state data, of the total 3,19,000 bags which have reached Manipur for the Kharif crop, the MLAs and CSOs have purchased and distributed 1,03,841 bags to the state’s farmers. The state agriculture department, through its warehouses in the four valley districts of Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur, has been able to distribute only 88,900 bags till this past August 7.

Kh Lalmani Singh, director of agriculture, told TFM that considering the demand for more fertiliser, there is now a need for a centralised distribution system and the department is working with the district magistrates to facilitate the supply to the local farmers.

He said, “Out of the state’s total urea allocation for this monsoon, a total of 3,19,000 bags have reached the state. The department has distributed 1,92,741 bags to the farmers.” The official data suggests that approximately 1,26,259 bags are still with the agriculture department. However, farmers are still left high and dry.

Where has the urea gone? 

“Urea is a state-controlled essential commodity and cannot be sold by private parties. If done, it is a punishable offence,” said Mutum Churamani, the president of LOUSAL (Loumee Shinmee Apun Lup), a farmers’ society.

In a conversation with TFM, Churamani said he had purchased a bag of urea worth about Rs 270 at Rs 800, categorically stating that “there is a thriving black market for it in the state”.

The farmers’ leader pointed out that the paddy cultivation is done in the five valley districts of the state during the monsoon. Since the hill districts do only Jhum (shifting) cultivation, the season for it is over and they have no urgent requirement for urea during this period.

Churamani, however, added, “There is rampant poppy plantation carried out in the hill districts of the state and urea is the main requisite for the fast growth of the plant.”

As per chief minister N. Biren Singh’s tweet this past January, during 2020-2021, the state police had destroyed about 1,420 acres of poppy cultivation in the hill districts. The chief minister himself consigned to flames pre-trial drugs, including opium, brown sugar, heroin, kept in the police malkhana worth around Rs 34 crore in the same month as part of the state’s ‘War on Drugs’ policy.

Churamani claimed that that loads of urea is siphoned off to the hill districts to grow poppy, illegally. “The valley districts have roughly an area of 1 lakh plus hectares out of the total 1,95,000 hectares arable land of the state. So, if we get three bags of urea per hectare, we need around three lakh bags only. However, the total allotment for the state is 4,40,000 bags. We have a surplus of more than 1,40,000 bags. In such a scene, why are we having a hard time getting urea? Farmers are not getting fertiliser but the drug cartels are,” he said, while adding, “The government’s ‘war on drugs’ stance is farcical.”

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LOUSAL publicity secretary Pukhrambam Inaobi, in a press note, has demanded that an inquiry committee be instituted during the assembly session from August 20 and the report be made public. The organisation’s stand is, based on that report, the government should make necessary arrangements for a more farmer-friendly urea distribution. LOUSAL has also demanded that the government must announce how many acres in the hill districts are under poppy cultivation.

Aside from it, Manipur’s strategic location, the farmers’ organisations state, also adds to the problem. According to them, urea is also smuggled into neighbouring Myanmar and sold at nearly Rs 1,800 per bag. Urea nitrate is also used to make improvised explosive devices. Besides, it is also used to ferment liquor, used as fast growth food for fish farms, etc. Hence, it has a wide clientele in the black market, they argue.

Union fertiliser ministry for transparency

Allocation of urea to the states is carried out by the Union ministry of chemicals and fertiliser. To ensure transparency, the ministry insists on cashless transactions, from account to account, through Quick Response (QR) code payment system. The ministry also provides machines for the PoS (Point of Sale) for the agriculture department to facilitate sale transparency and to reach the grassroots beneficiaries. A subsidy can also be claimed by the state government from the ministry through this process.

A source from the agriculture department has pointed out to the TFM that the Manipur government was intimated by the ministry that the sale of fertiliser should be conducted cashless to the extent possible. The ministry’s intimation had reached the chief minister’s office and the state chief secretary.

“However, maximum of the transactions have been done through cash only. The politicians and the civil society organisations are buying the urea with their own money." The reason for the failure, claimed by the source, “is that the PoS machines arrived in the state only in July and by then the distribution of urea had already started”. The passwords and usernames for the machines came only this month (in August) and “hence the department could not enter the electronic data of the distribution done earlier”.

The procurement of urea for Manipur is sourced from plants like Indian Potash Ltd, DVFCL Assam and IFFCO of UP. A bag of urea is purchased at Rs 183 prior to adding the transportation cost. Transportation comes in the form of goods train bogies called ‘racks’; each rack has 58,000 bags of urea. Manipur has been allotted seven racks for the Kharif season which amounts to approximately 4,06,000 bags.

As per information from the agriculture directorate, five and a half racks have reached Manipur thus far while 87,000 bags are pending which is roughly one and half rack. The cost per rack is around Rs 1,05,00,000 and by counting in the transportation cost from Jiribam, the last stop for the goods trains, to Imphal, the amount comes approximately to Rs 2 crore per rack.

A high-ranking official at the department told TFM that there are about 50,000 bags which are “lying undistributed as their packaging is flimsy and can easily break during unloading”. They would be “repackaged soon and distributed”.

For a stocktaking of the plight of the farmers of Manipur and the state’s fertiliser distribution process, a 20-member team of the parliamentary standing committee on chemicals and fertilisers to be led by its chairperson and DMK Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi is set to reach the state on August 25.

Meanwhile, the queues continue to swell.

This ground report is published in collaboration with The Frontier Manipur.  

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