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Fertiliser subsidy payment worth Rs 31,580 crore is likely to remain outstanding to the nutrient manufacturers this fiscal, Parliament was informed today.
"The Budget estimates for fertiliser subsidy in 2012-13 was Rs 65,874 crore. Against a projected requirement of Rs 1,02,207.38 crore, the Revised Estimates (RE) allocated is Rs 70,628 crore," Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Srikant Jena said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
"There is likely to be a carry over liability to the extent of shortfall of funds based on the actual requirement and funds made available under RE," he added.
The Minister was replying to a query whether the fertiliser industry has been facing the financial crunch due to huge amount of subsidy outstanding against the government.
To another query, he informed the house that 78.64 lakh tonnes of urea has been imported till February in this fiscal, against 78.34 lakh tonnes in the entire previous year.
Urea is being imported on government accounts while other fertilisers are imported under Open General Licence (OGL).
The government provides urea to the farmers at a fixed price of Rs 5,360 per tonne, which is much below its delivered cost. "The difference in the normated delivered cost and maximum retail price (MRP) is paid as subsidy by the government," Jena said.
During April-February period of 2012-13 fiscal, import of DAP stood at 57.79 lakh tonnes and MOP 18.14 lakh tonnes.
In phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilisers, the Centre is implementing Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) policy with effect from April 1, 2010.
Under NBS policy, a fixed amount of subsidy, decided on annual basis is provided on P&K fertilisers covered under the scheme.
"Since the country is nearly fully dependent on imports in P&K fertilisers either in the form of finished fertilisers or their raw material and subsidy being fixed, its international price affects the prices of fertilisers in the country," Jena said.
