Govt Seeks Rs 8k Cr Additional Fertiliser Subsidy.

NEW DELHI: The government today sought Parliament nod for an additional Rs 8,000 crore subsidy for the fertiliser sector taking the tally to Rs 66,075 crore for the current fiscal.

While Rs 4,350 crore is proposed to go towards reimbursing the importers of decontrolled fertilisers, the remaining Rs 3,650 crore would be provided to the indigenous producers, according to the third supplementary demands for grants tabled in Lok Sabha.

The total outgo on subsidy, however, is Rs 13,000 crore more than the originally estimated Rs 53,075 crore for 2010-11 fiscal. The government had provided Rs 5,000 crore in the interim as supplementary grant to the sector during the year.

In India, farmers bear only 25-40 per cent of the actual cost of fertilisers and the rest is borne by the government in the form of subsidy reimbursed to the manufacturers and importers.

The country had imported 16.17 million tonnes fertilisers in April-November this fiscal, almost equal to the total import of 16.38 million tonnes during the entire 2009-10.

India meets 85 per cent of its urea requirement through indigenous production, but is largely dependent on import for meeting the phosphorus and potassium requirements either as finished fertilisers or raw materials.

Meanwhile, according to budget proposals, government's subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers was expected to come down by 13 per cent in the next fiscal to Rs 1,34,210 crore.

This is against Rs 1,53,962 crore in the revised estimates for the current fiscal.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com