The Union Cabinet recently approved a package of schemes for farmers with a total outlay of ₹3,70,128.7 crore and the bulk of it — ₹3,68,676.7 crore — will be used for assuring subsidy for urea for another three years. Talking to The Hindu, the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Manuskh Mandaviya, said the Centre’s effort is to reduce import dependency on fertilizers, especially in view of the steep increase in prices after the Ukraine crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Excerpts from the interview:
What are the major components of the package announced recently for farmers?
It is not a scheme, it is a special package worth ₹3,70,128.7 crore. There are four components in this package. One of them is for ensuring a subsidy for urea for the next three years. A sum ₹3,68,676.7 crore has been committed for urea subsidy from 2022-23 to 2024-25. Of course, the urea subsidy is being ensured at the moment. But there could be changes in its allocation considering international situations and the price of gas. This scheme is a promise that the next Budgets will have allocations for the urea subsidy.
The second component is the Prime Minister’s Programme for Restoration, Awareness Generation, Nourishment, and Amelioration of Mother Earth (PM-PRANAM) scheme, which is for the balanced use of chemical fertilizers. The Centre and the States should work together to increase the use of alternate and organic fertilizers and promote natural farming by reducing the consumption of chemical fertilizers. Whatever fertilizer subsidy States save by promoting bio-fertilizers, half of it will be passed on by the Centre to the States.
The third component is to provide Market Development Assistance (MDA) of ₹1,500 per metric tonne to support marketing of organic fertilizers, produced as a by-product from bio-gas plants/compressed bio-gas (CBG) plants set up under GOBARdhan scheme.
The fourth component is to introduce sulphur coated urea as Urea Gold. This will address sulphur deficiency for the soil in the country and improve our crop productivity.
What was the need and relevance for such a special package at this point? Do we have crisis in fertilizers availability?
The package had to be brought in as the use of fertilizers has become unbalanced in the country. The nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium ratio should have been 4:2:1. Instead, it is 8:3:1. The balance of the soil has been damaged and production has become saturated as a result. Soil health, human health, animal health, and environmental health are connected with each other. To promote one health package, we brought this scheme.
Overuse of fertilizers, according to a study, resulted in a 16% decrease in production in Punjab despite a 10% increase in the use of fertilizers in the State during the same period. This is leading to the deterioration of soil health over a period of time. It is clear that balanced use of fertilizers is needed for steady production, food security, and for helping farmers too.
