Patiala, May 1: Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Surjit Singh Barnala today said that there were plans to set up a fertiliser plant in Sangrur and a chemical industry at Rajpura and Bathinda each.Addressing a Press conference here today, Barnala said that surveys would soon be conducted at these three places for choosing sites for the proposed units.Barnala asserted that the country had a bumper crop of wheat this year. However, he defended the import of wheat finalised by the previous government, which, he said, had placed orders for import of two million tonnes of wheat apprehending a deficit of about four million tonnes. Now this order had been scaled down to 1.5 million tonnes in view of the good crop.Defending India's plans to enter into an agreement with Oman to produce urea, Barnala said a deputation led by a Minister of Oman was already in Delhi to finalise the project and he was scheduled to meet the team this evening. In view of the acute shortage of urea that the country was now facing, Barnala said such an arrangement for manufacture of urea was necessary.He said the subsidy on fertilisers would continue though there were plans to streamline and overhaul the procedure of payment of subsidy.Barnala said there was a plan to augment the storage capacity for foodgrains in Punjab as storage of grains continued to be a major problem.The Union Fertiliser Minister also addressed a conference of the Food Corporation of India Mazdoor Dal and the Punjab Karamchari Dal.
