It's a perennial problem that keeps repeating year after year, with successive governments unable to ensure fertiliser to the farmers when they need it most. And so it has been this time, with the market facing an acute shortage of fertiliser just ahead of the paddy transplantation season with the start of the monsoon rains. On Monday, lawmakers registered an urgent motion in the House of Representatives (HoR) demanding deferral of the budget discussion to attend to the more pressing issue of fertiliser shortage.

Consequently, the HoR unanimously passed a special motion directing the government to provide fertilisers to the farmers at the earliest. It's not that the government is staying idle. In February this year, Nepal entered into an agreement directly with the Government of India for the supply of fertilisers over the next five years so as to bypass the lengthy tendering process. Under this government-to-government (G2G) agreement, Nepal can procure 565,000 tons of urea and 370,000 tons of DAP (diammonium phosphate) fertiliser over a five-year period. This fiscal, which ends in mid-July, Nepal will be importing 100,000 tons of urea and 50,000 tons of DAP fertiliser from India. But the problem is that the fertiliser has yet to reach Nepal's godowns.

The world too is facing a shortage of fertiliser due to the war in Ukraine and also because China has stopped the export of urea due to growing demand at home. Agriculture apart, urea has use in the manufacture of many chemicals, such as various plastics, urea-formaldehyde resins and adhesives. The shortage is made the worse by the rising prices of both the fertilisers in the international market, which means the resources allocated for their import will not help cover even last year's imports. There is a demand for about 700,000 tons of fertliser in Nepal, but Nepal imports just about half of it. Although India is expected to supply about 30 per cent of Nepal's needs, one must bear in mind that the southern neighbor itself is a huge importer of the commodity.

As always, amidst the crisis, everyone from across the political spectrum to the farmers are demanding a chemical fertiliser factory in the country. This, however, is easier said than done. Such a factory requires a steady supply of natural gas, which means laying pipelines to bring gas from either India, China or Bangladesh. And fertiliser plants don't come cheap, they require an investment of at least a billion dollars.

But given their acute shortage in Nepal's neighbourhood and in the international market, it might be prudent for the government or the business community to give it a serious thought sooner than later.

In the meantime, until we can have a fertiliser industry of our own, Nepal should enter into G2G agreements with more countries for a steady supply of the commodities. Past experience has shown that the private sector cannot be relied upon for the supply of fertilisers, having failed to do so time and again due to the cumbersome process involved and price volatility.

If the government is really serious about boosting agriculture and comercialising it, there is no alternative to maintaining a ready stock of fertilisers.

TU's image

It is frustrating to see that the country's oldest university - Tribhuvan University (TU) - is always in the news for the wrong reasons. It has come to light that the question paper for MA in Economics (third semester, public economics) exam on June 1 and the exam paper for MA in political science (first semester, international politics) on June 6 were repeated from the previous exams. The 13 questions, of 60 marks were found to be ditto to the previous two exam papers.

TU has formed a panel to investigate the repetition of question papers in the recent exams for the two degree programmes under the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Those involved in preparing the question papers deserve punitive action for their gross negligence. This incident has tarnished the image of the university, which neither conducts exams nor publishes results in time. This tendency has been going on for decades. Political interference in the academic institution has spoiled the future of thousands of students enrolled in the university. Nobody can expect a sound academic environment in TU, where part-time teachers and student unions padlock offices of the vice-chancellor and registrar for more than one year demanding fulfillment of their undue demands.

A version of this article appears in the print on June 15, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.