Ensure good boro crop by all means

The crisis stems to a great extent from some six fuel laden vessels having got stuck near the river port of Baghabari due to poor navigability. Clearly, the serious transportation bottleneck has ruled out any timely distribution of diesel across to the northern districts of the country. Thousands of irrigation pumps are lying idle. And, as the time is running out for plantation, the farmers have become agitated at the scarcity-induced unaffordable high price of diesel.

As a contingency measure a floating depot with the capacity of distributing only 750 tonnes of diesel as against the daily demand of 22,000 tonnes has been opened. The gap between supply and demand is evidently large. Even more worrying is the news that the Petroleum Corporation has only 12 days' reserve in the depot. It is not at all clear what will happen when the stock is exhausted, nor do we know why a matter of such grave importance like keeping the irrigation pumps going has been pushed towards uncertainty.

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The stakes are too high in a good boro crop which involves something like 12 lakh tonnes of diesel in the peak season of January to operate over one million pumps for irrigating the boro fields.

Matters must improve in this area in order to avoid any debilitating blow to the national economy. Our GDP growth calculations will be upset if rice production declines. The severe diesel crisis affects the sector at a time when we are looking forward to a greater contribution from the sector to the GDP growth rate.

The crunch situation calls for a quick resolution by improving the stock position and the distribution mechanism afield.