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As farmers in Telangana face a urea shortage amid the ongoing kharif season, the issue has led to a political blame game. The Revanth Reddy-led Congress government in the state accuses the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government of not supplying the state’s due share of urea.
According to Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, there’s a shortfall of 2.98 MT in the Union government’s sanctioned urea supply to Telangana this season. The Union government provides subsidised urea for farmers for both kharif and rabi seasons at Rs 266 per 45 kg bag, which costs the government over Rs 2,000. This includes both indigenous and imported urea.
BJP leaders in turn have claimed that there is no shortage, alleging that the Congress state government is creating an “artificial scarcity”, enabling a black market for selling urea at inflated prices.
The opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) too has blamed the Revanth Reddy government for the crisis. BRS working president KT Rama Rao went so far as to say that his party would support the Vice Presidential candidate of the NDA or the INDIA bloc, depending on which of them gets two lakh metric tons (MT) of urea to Telangana.
It’s not just Telangana. Neighbouring states, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, are also facing a urea crisis.
Multiple reasons have been cited for the shortage, from disruptions in urea imports to disruptions in urea production within Telangana.
Union Minister G Kishan Reddy said that urea imports from China and Ukraine have been affected in recent times. He also blamed Telangana Ministers for repeatedly talking about a shortage and prompting people to hoard urea, allegedly causing manufactured scarcity.
The urea shortage had led to protests by farmers at a few places during the last few days. BRS has pointed to farmers queuing up for hours across the state to buy urea.
“For the first time in Telangana’s history, women farmers are spending nights outside depots, farmers are leaving shoes and Aadhaar cards in queues to save their place and in some cases even facing police cases for demanding fertiliser,” KTR said.
On August 19, Telangana MPs raised the issue in Parliament, with Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi joining their protest.
According to the Congress, the Union government had allocated 9.8 lakh MT of urea to Telangana for the kharif season of 2025, of which 8.3 lakh MT was to be supplied by August. But only 5.32 lakh MT was sent as of August 19, leaving a shortfall of 2.98 lakh MT, CM Revanth had pointed out.
“Despite repeated requests in the form of letters and appeals to supply urea as per the needs of the state’s farmers, it is deplorable that the Union government has not responded,” CM Revanth said about the Parliament protest, alleging discrimination against Telangana by the Union government.
Revanth found fault with the BRS for not joining the MPs’ protest, alleging that the party was colluding with the BJP.
Following the protest, the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers approved 50,000 MT of urea supply to Telangana for the week.
On August 23, Telangana Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao met officials of the Ramagundam Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (RFCL), where urea production has seen disruptions.
The Minister reportedly told representatives of the state fertiliser unit that the urea shortfall from RFCL so far stands at 62,473 metric tonnes, with the plant functioning for only 40 days out of 145 days this season. He urged the plant to send 50% of the pending urea supply within a week.
Earlier on August 12, Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Anupriya Patel told the Rajya Sabha in response to a question that the “availability of urea in the state of Telangana has remained adequate during the ongoing Kharif-2025 season.”