Kathmandu: The government had said that chemical fertilizers will come from Bangladesh by November, but Bangladesh has been reluctant to sell fertiliser. It has been said that Bangladesh has proposed to the Government of Nepal to buy fertiliser there is no provision on their law to provide fertiliser on instead of saying that there is no provision in its law to provide fertiliser on loan basis.
Earlier, Minister for Agriculture Ghanshyam Bhusal had concluded that Bangladesh was the best option to import fertiliser in a short process after the shortage of urea fertiliser in June-July. In his proposal, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had proposed to give 50,000 tonnes of urea fertilizer to his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in a telephone conversation on 16 August.
Despite accepting Oli’s offer, Bangladesh has so far been reluctant to give the fertiliser, citing legal reasons.
It is said that Bangladesh has now offered to buy the fertiliser instead of taking on loan basis. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, discussions are underway after Bangladesh asked them to buy fertiliser.
According to the ministry, a decision will have to be taken again by the Cabinet to procure urea fertilizer from Bangladesh. Earlier, the cabinet had given approval to bring them on loan basis.
Even though a contract has already been signed to procure the fertilizer in the GTG (Government to Government) process, it could not be imported as Bangladesh has not decided how to supply the fertilizer.