September 21: The Agriculture Inputs Company Limited (Krishi Samagri Company Limited) has called tender to bring 50,000 tons of urea from Bangladesh. The government had handed the responsibility of bringing the fertilizers from Bangladesh on loan to the Agriculture Inputs Company.

The government had asked for assistance from Bangladesh to supply urea after the farmers faced acute shortage of the chemical fertilizer during the planting season this year. The KP Oli-led government had reached an understanding with Bangladesh three weeks ago to receive the fertilizer on condition that it will return the same amount of fertilizer to Bangladesh after eight months.

A cabinet meeting last Thursday handed over the responsibility of bringing the fertilizer to the Agriculture Inputs Company, following which the company called for tender bids.

Chief of the purchase division of Agriculture Inputs Company, Bishnu Pokharel, informed that they are planning to bring the fertilizer from Chittagong of Bangladesh. For this, the company has issued tender with a deadline of seven days. The state-owned company informed that it will take around 25 days to finalize the deal.

It is estimated that it will take at least a month for the fertilizers to reach Nepal.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Bangladesh has a stock of 1 million tons of urea from which it will lend 50,000 tons to Nepal.