Indian Farmer’s Fertilizers Co-operative Ltd, (IFFCO) Paradip unit has empowered the farmers and women in Orissa through various training and economic activities, its director K.L.Singh said.
The Paradeep unit commenced its production on 29th November 2005 after taking it from Oswal Chemical Fertilizers Ltd. This unit has covered 30 villages in five districts Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Puri, Nayagarh, and Ganjam and has spent Rs 2 cores in these villages in 2006-07.
The activites undertaken are empowering of women through various training and economic activities, he told media men here Tuesday.
Under the programme, we have adopted five villages Bhutmundei, Pipal, Chakradharpur,Singitali,and Nuagada villages in Jagatsinghpur district and six villages Ramanagar, Barajabahakuda, Kharanasi,Akhadasali, Tendulikhanda, and Karanj in Kandrapada district.
IFFCO is planning to set up a state of the art ‘Biju Pattanik Farmers Training Institute’. The farmers of Orissa will be given training on best crop practices of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables and horticulture crops, fruit preservation, fish farming dairy, and poultry bee keeping and maintenance of agriculture equipments, he said.
It will be residential programme, and boarding & lodging will be provided free of cost. IFFCO plans to train minimum of 50.000 farmers in a year which will be increased to 100.000 farmers in a phased manner.
It will do extensive analysis of soil samples through this institute for improving the soil health and productivity of crops with balanced and integrated use of nutrients. – He added.
Singh informed that Pardip fertilizers unit which was under Oswal Company was almost in non operational state for three years and the condition of equipments were in worst condition.
There was no maintenance of environmental standards and norms causing threat to local people, no proper effluent management system, handling and storage system for products and raw materials at this fertilizers complex.
We have taken various steps like fire hydrant and smoke detection system, maintenance of historical readings of process parameters, health check up of plant, ammonia detectors with alarm system, hazardous waste disposal pit, and other measures to check pollution in plant site.
IFFCO has promoted several institutions and organizations to work for the welfare of farmers and strengthening cooperative movement by the help of Indian Farm Forestry Development Cooperative Ltd (IFFDC), IFFCO foundation, Kisan Sewa Trust.
Our Paradeep unit has increased its annual capacity to 3.69 million tones of Urea, NPK and DAP equivalent to 1.71million tones of P205, .Singh said.
IFFCO produced 0.3lakh ton of DAP / NPK in 2005-06, 7.5lakh ton in 2006-07 and 2.59 lakh ton in the first quarter of 2007-08 and are confident of achieving its target production of 1.00-1.25 lakh ton per month of DAP /NPK from now on wards.
Besides this, there are four other plants at Aonla, Phulpur of Uttar Pradesh and Kalol, Kandla of Gujrat state having a reputation of excellence and quality.
The distribution of IFFCO’s fertilizers was undertaken through only 57 co operative societies in 1967-68 but now it has increased more than 38.000 societies in the country.