The government is going to set up a urea fertiliser factory at Ghorashal in Narsingdi. The factory would be established under ‘Ghorashal Polash Urea Fertiliser Project at Polash upazila of the district. This fertiliser factory will have an annual production capacity of 9.24 lakh metric tons, involving Tk 10,461 crore in a bid to meet the country’s growing demand for this fertiliser.
This was disclosed at the second meeting of parliamentary standing committee on industries ministry at parliament complex. Committee Chairman Amir Hossain presided over the meeting. Committee members State Minister for industries Kamal Ahmed Mojumder, Parveen Haque Sikder, AKM Fazlul Haque, Habibur Rahman Mollah, Mohammad Shahiduzzaman and Kazim Uddin Ahmed also attended the meeting.
The meeting also discussed country’s overall fertiliser distribution, meeting sources said, adding, it also asked the concerned ministries to ensure uninterrupted power and gas supply to industries. According to the planning ministry, the ‘Ghorashal Polash Urea Fertiliser Project’ will be implemented by the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) under the Ministry of Industries by June 2022.
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Out of the total estimated fertilizer factory project cost of Tk 10,460.91 crore, Tk 1,844.19 crore will come from the government while the rest Tk 8,616.72 crore will come from bidders financing. The main project objectives include setting up a new granular urea fertiliser factory at Polash adjacent to the existing Ghorashal Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd and Polash Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd under Narsingdi district with a daily production capacity of 2,800 metric tons and annual production capacity of 9,24,000 metric tons.
Besides, the new urea fertilizer factory will also aim at meeting the growing demand of fertiliser to ensure food security in the country side by side ensuring smooth supply of fertiliser to the farmers at an affordable cost. Once the project is implemented, it will help save foreign currencies through reducing import of fertilisers alongside generating more employment opportunities in the country.
An official at the BCIC told the news agency that the countrywide annual demand of urea fertiliser is in between 26 and 30 lakh metric tons whereas the six fertiliser factories under the BCIC could produce roughly 9-10 lakh metric tons. So, the rest of the deficit (17-20 lakh metric tons) of urea fertiliser is being procured from KAFCO or imported.
Apart from these, most of the machineries of the Ghorashal Urea Fertilizer Factory Ltd and Polash Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd have become dilapidated for which the daily production capacity of these two existing fertilizer factories has now come down to 1,050 metric tons.