Indian Farmers and Fertilisers Cooperative (IFFCO) Limited today said it would benefit from the competition that would ensue if reputed manufacturers from abroad set up their units in the country.

“If foreign fertiliser companies set up their units in India we would be happy and not worried. Competition is always beneficial to those who are competitive”, the fertiliser major’s Managing Director and CEO, U S Awasthi said here.

He was responding to a query relating to the probability of major players from abroad entering the fertiliser sector as part of the “Make in India” campaign and its possible impact on IFFCO which produces 36 per cent of the country’s total stock of phosphatic fertilisers and 21 per cent of nitrogenous fertilisers.

Awasthi, however stressed on the urgent need for a new fertiliser policy which only would enable us to reach our target of 18 lakh tonnes for this financial year without incurring losses. Last fiscal saw us suffering a loss of Rs 30 crore.

“Unless a new and favourable policy comes into being, we might be compelled to produce much less than our capacity and end up producing not more than 14.5 lakh tonnes.”

“We have also approached the government with a number of recommendations which, we believe, are being taken seriously and would lead to a positive outcome”.

“Our primary recommendation is to raise the prices for urea, an excessive use of which by ill-informed farmers has become rampant, resulting in sub-optimal levels of produce and avoidable damage to soil”, he said.

“The Reserve Bank of India, in its Economic Survey, has already underscored the overuse of urea, which is estimated to be 50 lakh tonnes in excess of what is required”.

“This has also led to imports to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore of urea which could have been avoided. In addition to raising the prices for urea, we have recommended making phosphate and potash cheaper and encouraging farmers to augment their use of bio-fertilisers”, Awasthi added.

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