Poor transport cause for delay - NFS Director

Ishara Mudugamuwa

As we don't have enough transport facilities we couldn't supply fertilizer swiftly to some areas specially Anuradhapura as it is a large district which has 40 agrarian services divisions, said National Fertilizer Secretariat (NFS) Director Ranjan Dharmawardane.

The Government had taken steps to provide fertilizer for Maha season cultivation through the Lanka fertilizer Company and Colombo Commercial Fertilizer Company, he said.

"Normally, the Maha season starts in September. This year the cultivation of paddy was delayed because of bad weather condition and started this month," he said.

Some Farmer's Associations are complaining about the fertilizer shortage. There is no fertilizer shortage in the country, he said.

The Director said: "We have already taken steps to transport fertilizer to all Agrarian Services divisions within next two days.

Last morning we sent 300 Metric Tons of fertilizer to Anuradhapura by train."