AGRA: A 60-year-old farmer, identified as Ram Brajesh, died of sheer exhaustion while waiting in a queue outside a fertiliser shop on Friday in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad district. Brajesh passed out standing in the queue and later died during treatment at a local community health center, said police. The officials said his body was cremated without conducting an autopsy.
With the commencement of the sowing season for Rabi crops (including wheat, mustard and pulses), farmers in the state are struggling to get di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), fertiliser essential to enhance crop yield. With long queues outside government-run cooperative societies, farmers in Agra district alleged that they are unable to procure fertilisers for their cultivation. Many of them also complained of being overcharged for DAP. They said DAP weighing 50 kg that should cost them Rs 1350 was being sold to them at Rs 1750 a bag. According to the farmers, the DAP requirement per acre is 100 kg.
