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Union Minister for Chemicals, Petrochemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar on Friday announced that the central government had no plans to increase the prices of urea nor was there any move to cut subsidies.
“Urea is currently controlled and priced at Rs 5,360 a tonne. On the other hand, decontrolled phosphatic and potassic fertilisers are priced in the open market. I want to assure farmers that there won't be any increase in urea price. Besides, the government does not have any plans to cut fertiliser subsidy,” Kumar said at a chemical industry function here.
He indicated that his ministry had sought rationalisation of taxes and more incentives in the forthcoming Budget for the chemicals, petrochemicals and fertilisers sector.
Kumar’s announcement is important as the Centre had earlier estimated the fertiliser subsidy at Rs 67,970 crore for 2014-15. Further, the Fertiliser Association of India has projected the subsidy burden to rise to Rs 100,000 crore.
Kumar also assured that there would not be any fertiliser shortage in the country. He added that he had been video conferencing with states every week to meet their requirements.
According to Kumar, his ministry had proposed to revive the Talcher, Ramagundam and Sindri units to boost the production of domestic urea.
