PM inaugurates world’s first Nano Urea plant

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the World’s first Nano Urea Liquid plant by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) at Kalol, Gujarat, on May 28 in an effort to provide farmers the means to boost productivity and help increase their income. This is a giant step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat and Atmanirbhar Krishi (self-reliant agriculture). IFFCO is the world’s No.1 processed fertilizer cooperative.

Modi dedicated the ultramodern Nano Urea Liquid fertilizer plant virtually to the service of the nation at a ceremony held at Gandhinagar. Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, Chief Minister of Gujarat Bhupendra Patel, and Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Chemicals and Fertilizers Dr Mansukh Mandaviya were present at the ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Modi said that he felt extremely happy to inaugurate the world's first nano-fertilizer plant. He further said that the power of one bag of urea would now be available to farmers in a half-litre bottle of urea. This would reduce transportation costs and benefit small farmers.

Modi also said that the state-of-the-art plant can produce 1.5 lakh bottles of urea per day and IFFCO was planning eight more such plants. This will truly revolutionize the sector, making agriculture in India Atmanirbhar, thus reducing dependence on urea imports.

Amit Shah congratulated the whole team of IFFCO, including their scientists, for their pathbreaking initiative in producing nano-fertilizer, which will bring a new revolution in the agro sector of India.

IFFCO has set up additional manufacturing facilities for the production of nano-fertilizers at Aonla, Phulpur, Kalol (expansion), Bengaluru, Paradeep, Kandla, Deoghar and Guwahati units for the production of Nano Urea, Nano DAP and nano micronutrients at different locations. All these units shall have a design production capacity of 2 lakh bottles per day with a total investment of Rs 3000 crores. Of this, Rs 720 crores is already committed and will generate employment for thousands of people.

Dr US Awasthi, MD IFFCO, spoke about the functioning of the plant and its various technologies with the help of a walkthrough video of the plant, which was shown live through the launch. The usage of IFFCO Nano Urea was shown in a film to more than 7000 farmers and cooperators present there. Awasthi said that the vehicle of the Nano Urea revolution will be drones, as they would introduce modern farming techniques and practices.

The IFFCO MD said that Nano Urea Liquid had been found to be very effective in increasing the nutritional quality and productivity of crops. Besides, it has a huge positive impact on the quality of underground water and the environment, thus resulting in a significant reduction in global warming. Awasthi informed that 3.60 crores of bottles of IFFCO Nano Urea Liquid had been produced, out of which 2.50 crores had already been sold.

Dileep Sanghani, Chairman, IFFCO, said that Nano Urea Liquid had been made in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Sahkar se Samriddhi with the aim of increasing farmer’s income.

IFFCO had last year introduced the world’s first IFFCO Nano Urea (Liquid), which is included in the Fertiliser Control Order (FCO, 1985). It was indigenously developed through a proprietary technology at IFFCO’s Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) at Kalol, Gujarat. The first production unit at Kalol has been made with an investment of Rs 175 crores and at present has a production capacity of 1.5 lakh 500ml bottles of Nano Urea per day.