• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Kamal Narang

Higher supplies: The Union Minister of Chemicals, Fertilisers and Steel, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, addressing a press conference in the Capital on Friday. —

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 7 The country will be able to save more than Rs 20,000 crore in its fertiliser subsidy bill during the current financial year as a fall-out of the global economic crisis leading to slide in international markets.

With falling international prices of major fertilisers and key raw materials over the last three months, the subsidy bill for the full year is expected to come down from the earlier estimated Rs 1.19 lakh crore to less than Rs 1 lakh crore, which would be a savings of around Rs 20,000 crore, the Minister for Fertilisers, Chemicals and Steel, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, told reporters here today.

Prices of major fertilisers such as urea and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and key raw materials such as sulphur, phosphoric acid etc havecome down steeply during the past three months from their peaks in July this year.

The Minister said that “the subsidy would have come down even further but the fall in the value of rupee against the dollar has offset some of the benefits of the falling fertiliser prices.”

Till now, around Rs 87,000 crore fertiliser subsidy has been disbursed in 2008-09, he said adding that payments have been made in cash.

As far as availability during the current year is concerned, the Minister said that this year’s supplies are higher than that of last year.

In case of urea, consumption in 2007-08 was 261.67 lakh tonnes.

For 2008-09, the Government has set a target of supplying 288 lakh tonnes against which 158.02 lakh tonnes have already been supplied to the States till October, Mr Paswan said.

The target for DAP supplies has been increased to 111 lakh tonnes in the current year against 75.55 lakh tonnes last year. Till October, around 67.59 lakh tonnes have been supplied which include around 45 lakh tonnes of imports.

For complex nutrients also, the supplies during the current year have been fixed at much higher levels compared to last year.

Complex fertilisers supply target for the current year has been fixed at 80 lakh tonnes against last year’s consumption of 65.5 lakh tonnes. Out of this, around 45.22 lakh tonnes have already been supplied, the Minister said.

More Stories on : Fertilisers | Policy

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line