Assam's Merapani border becomes ultimate route for Illegal urea trade; smuggled to Myanmar via Nagaland

While farmers in the state are protesting over the acute shortage of urea, quintals of urea are illegally smuggled to Myanmar every day. A huge gang is smuggling urea to Myanmar through Nagaland, taking advantage of the state agriculture department's right-wing policies and the police's mysterious role.

Many illicit urea traders exist in the state, particularly in the Merapani border area of the Golaghat district. The smugglers have been importing urea into Nagaland in trucks on a regular basis by submitting fake bills at the CRPF at Merapani.

Because Merapani borders the neighboring state of Nagaland, illegal urea trading has become easier. Trucks carrying urea entered Nagaland via numerous alternate routes along the border and transported it to an inter-state ring.

Another ring located in Nagaland smuggled the urea bags from Nagaland to Myanmar in huge vans. The price of urea, which was priced at Rs 266 per bag in Assam, rose to an incredible Rs 2,500 per bag after entering Myanmar.

Assam's black traders collect urea from various locations in the Golaghat and Jorhat regions and manage several groups to enter Nagaland first. The vehicles loaded with urea were later easily transported into Myanmar over the Moreh border with the assistance of Nagas.

The selling of urea in the state is governed by strict regulations. To combat urea smuggling, the government has mandated that a farmer can receive only 30 bags of urea for each Aadhaar number. The smuggling of urea in trucks without Aadhaar numbers and digital signatures is shrouded in mystery.

The two parties from Golaghat and Borhola, Titabor have been delivering urea to the smugglers on a regular basis, depriving local farmers of higher prices than the government-set price. The CRPF and Merapani police have failed to prevent the daily supply of hundreds of quintals of urea to neighboring Nagaland through the Merapani bazaar.