The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave a nod to increasing the benchmark prices of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MoP) to ensure adequate availability during the upcoming kharif sowing season. The benchmark price will be increased to $612 per tonne for DAP and $420 per tonne for MoP from the current level of $580 per tonne and $ 390 per tonne, respectively.
The decision was taken amid rising international prices and is likely to increase the subsidy burden of the government. However, the actual subsidy outgo will depend on the sale of these fertilisers.
A Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had decided in February the government would shoulder an additional fertiliser subsidy burden in the wake of rising global fertiliser prices.
India imports six million tonnes of DAP and four million tonnes of MoP every year. “This will enable the manufacturers and importers to import fertiliser and fertiliser inputs and undertake domestic production and make fertiliser available to the farmers in 2011-12,” an official statement said, adding farmers would be able to buy fertilisers at subsidised rates at the maximum retail price.
The budgetary provision for phosphatic and potassic fertilisers for the 2011-12 financial year is Rs 33,500 crore. The total subsidy outgo on potassium and phosphatic fertilisers for this financial year would depend on the overall sale of fertilisers.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved the revised cost estimate of Rs 2,288.06 crore for the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project in place of the original approved cost estimate of Rs 1,718 crore.
The revised cost estimate includes the additional loan component of Rs 95.51 crore to be provided to offset the lower recovery of the user charges from Rs 118 crore (originally envisaged) to Rs 22.49 crore during the project period.
The CCEA also advanced the completion date to December 31, 2012 from the earlier date of September 30, 2011. The additional loan will be interest free, with moratorium of seven years and to be repaid in eight annual instalments.
CCEA okayed Rs 7,000 crore for cleaning river Ganga to be implemented by the National Ganga River Basin Authority. The Centre will provide Rs 5,100 crore while Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal will contribute Rs 1,900 crore. The World Bank will give a loan of $ 1 billion. The project will last eight years.
CCEA gave a nod to a Ministry of Health & Family Welfare proposal for second phase of the Intensified Malaria Control Project for seven North Eastern States (except Sikkim) under National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme with support from Global Fund for Aids, TB and Malaria at a cost of Rs 417.22 crore.
CCEA approved revised cost estimates from Rs 244.60 crore to Rs 479.91 crore for setting up of the National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management at Kundli, Haryana. This increased cost will have a foreign exchange component of $ 8.1 million.
