Indian firm admits shortfall in packaged fertilizer

Indian Potash Limited (IPL), a company partly owned by the Indian government, has admitted supplying to Nepal fertilizer bags that fell short of weight mentioned in the tags and has expressed commitment to compensate the loss.
The acknowledgement of mistakes was made by IPL through a letter written to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) which it received on Feb 15.
"This is to express our deep concern over complaints on supply of urea bags, which fell short of weight mentioned in the tags, and to reiterate our commitment to supply quality fertilizer," reads the first paragraph of the letter. IPL, in its letter, has also said technical reasons were to be blamed for the mistake.
Even after getting the letter from IPL, MoAC has formed a committee to investigate the matter. "A committee has been formed under the leadership of Uttam Bhattrai, joint secretary of the ministry,” Dr Hari Dahal, joint secretary and spokesperson of the ministry said. "The committee has already commenced its investigation."
Earlier, it was found that 41 percent of urea bags supplied by IPL fell short of the weight mentioned in the label. These bags -- which totaled 30,000 tons -- were supplied to state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Ltd (AICL) of Nepal.
The MoAC has decided to hold IPL´s payment of over Rs 450 million -- equivalent to about 25 percent of the total bill -- until the problem is settled. "We have formed a team to further investigate the matter," Dr Dahal said, calling the incident "a result of irresponsibility and extreme carelessness of IPL".
IPL and AICL had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 8th of August 2011, which paved way for the supply of the fertilizer from India. IPL started to supply fertilizer from November 18.
"We started getting complaints after imports of 7,500 tons of fertilizer," Dr Dahal said on Thursday. He further added: "After getting complaints, we conducted a sample test. Out of 105 bags that were tested, 41 percent of the bags did not have the stipulated quantity of fertilizer."
Similarly, bags of fertilizer supplied by Metal and Mineral Trading Company (MMTC), a public enterprise under the Indian Ministry of Commerce, have also fallen short of the mentioned weight.
According to the MoAC, of the total of 2,500 tons of fertilizer supplied by the Indian company, few of the bags contained 500 grams to 10.5 kg less fertilizer.
"Regional office of AICL in Biratnagar carried out a sample test of 2,611 bags, of which 33 bags fell short of 1-3 kg of fertilizer, while 13 bags exceeded the weight mentioned in the label," Dr Dahal said in an interaction with media persons.