A panel of secretaries will hold its first meeting to discuss freeing up the pricing of most widely used urea fertiliser in the first week of February.
"The meeting of the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) will be held in the first week of February," a senior fertiliser ministry official told PTI.
Early this month, the group of ministers (GoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had deferred a decision on decontrol of urea prices and had referred the issue to a CoS. The panel was asked to submit its report in a month to the GoM, which will then take a final call.
Secretaries from the planning commission, fertiliser, agriculture and finance ministries would attend the meeting.
Removal of controls on urea fertiliser could help the government bring down the subsidy bill that is estimated at over Rs 20,000 crore for the current fiscal.
While the total fertiliser subsidy bill is projected at Rs 52,980.25 crore for the 2010-11 fiscal.
Last year, the government had decontrolled phosphatic and potash fertilisers. It has kept fixed subsidy on these fertilisers in order to cushion any sharp fluctuation in the retail price.
The official said that besides urea price deregulation, the panel is also expected to discuss on removal of import and export restrictions to steer a total free market in urea.
Presently, only three designated agencies — MMTC, Indian Potash and State Trading Corporation (STC) can import urea as per the order placed by the government.
Currently, the maximum retail price (MRP) of urea fixed at Rs 5,310 a tonne, whereas companies are selling di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) at Rs 9,950 and muriate of potash (MOP) at Rs 4,455.
During 2010-11, the country is expected to consume 26 million tonnes of urea, 11 million tonnes of of DAP, five million tonnes of MOP and 10 million tonnes of various complex fertilisers.
