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Fertiliser subsidy raised by Rs 10 billion

The Union government has enhanced the subsidy package on fertilisers from Rs 30 billion to Rs 40 billion by increasing the concession component on phosphatic and potash fertilisers for the coming rabi crop.

The Cabinet also decided to delicence the sugar industry with partial acceptance of the Mahajan Committee recommendations on sugar industry.

Announcing this at a hurriedly called press conference, Minister of State for Agriculture Sompal Singh said the retention price scheme in case of urea would be retained as such.

The minister said in keeping with the objective of decontrol, there would be no indicative maximum retail price for fertilisers.

A buffer stock of 200,000 tonnes of DAP and 55,000 metric tonnes of MOP will be maintained to meet the emergent requirements, he said.

The new policy on fertilisers, effective from October 1, would give a long-term perspective to manufacturers and importers to ensure the availability of phosphatic and potassic fertilisers, the minister said.

The concession on DAP (indigenous) has been enhanced from Rs 3,500 per mt to Rs 4,000 per mt, DAP (imported) from Rs 2,000 per mt to Rs 2,500 per mt, MOP from Rs 2,000 per mt to Rs 2,500 per mt and SSP from Rs 600 per mt to Rs 900 per mt. The subsidy on fertiliser complexes ranges from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,130 per mt. It has now been raised to between Rs 2,250 and Rs 3,646 per mt.

Referring to the de-licencing of the sugar industry, Sompal said it would be applicable both to the private and cooperative sectors. The government had accepted the Mahajan Committee recommendations of declaring the cane zone and cane reserved area, but brought down the suggested distance of 25 km between two sugar mills to 15 km.

UNI