Tata Chemicals has asked the Centre to come out with a policy to decontrol urea pricing, particularly when price of the key fertiliser has fallen sharply in last few month.
R Mukundan, Managing Director of Tata Chemicals, said the Government should set the ball rolling for a rational and step-by-step increase in urea prices.
Considering the downtrend in global urea prices, he said that the Government may want to leverage the opportunity and free up the urea prices, at least partially.
The move will not only reduce the fertiliser subsidy bill but also encourage balanced use of fertilisers to improve soil health, he said.
It is important that the Government helps in reducing the working capital pressure of the urea manufacturers by increasing the budget allocation of urea subsidies and putting in the effort to resolve delays in subsidy payments which is impacting the working capital of the urea manufacturers, said Mukundan.
Tata Chemicals has subsidy receivable of ₹1,600 crore as of December quarter. Calling for a national policy to boost domestic production of diammonium phosphate, he said the government should remove duties on certain imported raw materials, which are not produced in India.
“The Finance Minister should also ensure that there is a final resolution of the GST issue and we move towards speedy implementation of the same,” he said.