Mayawati-led ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh has blamed the Centre for the recent hike in urea prices in the state and said it would adversely affect agricultural production.
Terming the increase as ‘anti-farmer’, the party has demanded immediate rollback of the hike in urea prices.
“This ‘whimsical’ increase would put additional burden on the state farmers, who are already reeling under runaway inflation,” BSP state president Swami Parsad Maurya said in a press communiqué here.
The Centre has permitted fertiliser companies to charge an additional Rs 14 over maximum retail price (MRP) on 50 kg bag of urea fertiliser from April 1 in UP.
Maurya said the Centre had taken the decision on the basis of entry tax levied on natural gas used in fertiliser production in UP.
He claimed the entry tax charged on gas had been implemented in November 1999 and the state had not recently effected any increase in entry tax of natural gas, which could justify the urea price hike.
Maurya said earlier trade tax on chemical fertiliser was being charged at the rate of 6.5 per cent and traders having annual turnover of over Rs 50 lakh were charged an additional State Development Tax at one per cent.
After implementing Value Added Tax (VAT) in January 2008, UP had in fact decreased tax rate to 4 per cent.
“Besides, the Centre had promised that the states implementing VAT would be reimbursed. However, the UPA government has failed to reimburse UP’s legitimate claims,” he claimed.
He said for 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10, the Centre had released an amount of Rs. 3,542 crore to Andhra Pradesh, Rs 2,591 crore to Delhi, Rs 1,952 crore to Gujarat, Rs. 2,969 crore to Haryana, Rs 2,314 crore to Karnataka and Rs 2,456 to Tamil Nadu.
“However, our VAT compensation of Rs 175 crore is still pending,” he added.
