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The fertiliser industry has been given an additional Rs 8,000-crore subsidy for the current fiscal, which is expected to clear most of its outstanding dues from the Centre.
The Union Budget for 2010-11 had originally allocated Rs 49,980.73 crore towards fertiliser subsidy, which was later raised to Rs 54,976.68 crore according to the revised estimates presented by the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, in his latest Budget.
But in the third batch of supplementary demand for grants tabled by Mr S.S.Palanimanickam, Minister of State for Finance, in the Lok Sabha on Friday, the industry has been provided another Rs 8,000 crore — the entire amount would go to phosphatic, potassic and complex fertiliser firms. That would take the total fertiliser subsidy bill for this fiscal to almost Rs 63,000 crore.
“The latest allocation for fertiliser subsidy will ensure that there are no pending dues to be rolled over to the next fiscal. The Rs 49,997.87 crore allocated for 2011-12 will go entirely for that fiscal year's subsidy payments,” industry sources said.
On an overall basis, in the third and final batch, Parliament approval has now been sought to authorise gross additional expenditure of Rs 79,590.49 crore, including a net cash outgo of Rs 68,918.61 crore.
Besides fertiliser subsidy of Rs 8,000 crore, the main heads for which there will be net cash outgo are petroleum subsidy of Rs 21,000 crore, food subsidy of Rs 3,972.46 crore, Defence pension of Rs 9,000 crore, short-term loan of Rs 5,000 crore to Food Corporation of India, recapitalisation of public sector banks involving an amount of Rs 3,187 crore and central sales tax (CST)/VAT revenue loss compensation to States of Rs 3,354.13 crore.
On the food subsidy front, the Centre's latest cash spend of Rs 3,972.46 crore will be in addition to the revised estimate of Rs 60,599.53 crore provided for 2010-11.
The Centre will also spend Rs 3,380.55 crore towards crediting Farmers' Debt Relief Fund to implement the debt waiver and debt relief scheme for farmers-2008. For providing short term credit to farmers, a sum of Rs 530 crore is proposed to be spent by the Government.
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