The Centre is taking necessary action in coordination with the states, railways and fertilizer companies to resolve local availability issues to ensure expeditious supplies of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP). Despite challenges, the Department of Fertilizers has taken numerous steps to maintain adequate supplies of DAP to the states, a release said.

This year, due to the prevailing geo-political situations such as less export to India by major suppliers and the Red Sea Crisis, the DAP supplies were affected. India is dependent upon the imported supplies of Diammonium Phosphate in order to meet the demand of the states. At present, approximately 60 per cent of DAP availability is met by the Imported supplies.

The domestic production also depends upon import of raw materials. The Red Sea crisis led to diversion of vessels including Phosphoric Acid via Cape of Good Hope thus resulting in longer voyage time and associated supply chain disruptions, the release said.

In this Rabi 2024-25 season, in spite of global factors, quantities exceeding 17 lakh tons of DAP arrived at various ports and were sent to the states in October and November 2024, it said.  “Almost 6.50 Lakh tons of domestic production were further made available to States.  Therefore, imported and domestic DAP supplied to the States in October and November 2024 so far has become approximately 23 Lakh tons excluding buffer stock available in the states,” the release said. .

“In addition, major states like Uttar Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh used NPKS of various grades to the extent of 5 lakh tons more as compared to last Rabi Season which is a significant development. In the entire country, the states have consumed 10 lakh tons of NPKS more than previous Rabi,” it added.

The release said that intensive efforts of the government resulted in the total availability of 34.81 lakh metric ton (LMT) of DAP and 55.14 LMT of NPKS during the ongoing Rabi season till date.