Why DBT on fertiliser subsidy could prove more chaotic than corrective

It won't necessarily help pare huge arrears payable to manufacturers; issues with availability and functioning of PoS machines persist

From April this year, the government plans to make it mandatory for the nation’s nearly 140 million farmers to mandatorily receive fertiliser subsidy through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. A less-noticed supplement to this announcement has been a stated intention to eliminate the arrears in subsidy payments to fertiliser companies before DBT comes into force –- that is, by March 31, 2018.

As on December 22, around 14 states have been brought under the DBT framework. This will be music to fertiliser manufacturers, since the question of subsidy arrears has remained a troublesome one for years, impinging on working