SANGRUR, July 29 -- The Punjab agriculture department is conducting checks at 2,324 urea retailers across all 23 districts of the state.

The checks came after direct orders from the Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers, following concerns over a significant increase in urea sales by certain retailers.

Deepinder Singh, chief agriculture officer of Hoshiarpur, who has been assigned Sangrur for checks, stated, "We have to check 259 retailers included in the list in Sangrur district due to concern of increase in urea consumption, which has been found to be more than the previous year. We need to specifically check that the sale of urea to farmers is genuine and that it is not being used by industries, which are supposed to buy urea a...