Finally, urea bags reach Abohar

Our Correspondent

Abohar, November 24

After two months, manned level crossings downed for 15 minutes to facilitate entry of a goods train here today. The crossings stayed lifted since the last week of September due to protests by farmers.

The arrival of the train brought cheer among farmers as it carried 66,000 urea bags which were dispatched by the Indian Potash Limited for distribution among farmers here.

The civil authorities and police had already laid special nakas near the interstate borders on the highways to prevent transport of fertilisers to Rajasthan.

Even when none of the unions had staged a dharna on the rail tracks here in the past two months, the Railways had decided not to run freight trains. This had created acute shortage of DAP fertiliser that was to be used at the time of sowing wheat. Also, there was scarcity of urea fertiliser that was needed for cereal crops and fruit orchards.

The Abohar Pesticides and Fertiliser Dealers’ Association had appealed to farm unions to let goods trains run since it was in their interest also.

Farmers had to halt transporting cotton produce to the new grain market for 10 days as the Cotton Corporation of India suspended purchase after suffering Rs 5-crore loss in a major factory fire.