Official sources said the factory authorities suspended the production at about 8:00am soon after the stock of ammonia, main component of producing urea, ran out.

"Ammonia production was halted in the factory on Thursday after the compressor of the ammonia plant turned nonfunctional due to overheating. Since then, we have continued the production operation utilising reserve stock of ammonia," said a factory official.

"It will take around a week to repair the fault to resume the production," he said.

The government already had to count a whopping loss as the state-run fertiliser factory, with age-old equipment, turned inoperative frequently due to recurrence of technical faults.

Due to halt in production, the factory has to incur a loss of around Tk 75 lakh daily, said a source.

A total of 1,400 metric tons of urea fertiliser are produced everyday in the factory.

With the latest suspension, fertiliser production in Zia Fertiliser was suspended twice this month.

The fertiliser production in the factory was suspended for around 11 times in the last nine months.