Centre's nutrient based pricing regime welcomed

The pricing policy was bound to benefit the industry in a big way as the country was importing sulphur, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and rock phosphate, the basic raw materials for the industry, fertiliser industry sources say.    

However, it was a matter of concern that most fertiliser plants were either shutting down their operations due to financial crisis, higher cost of production, non-availability of gas to run the plants and delay in subsidy disbursement by the government, the sources said.    

Indigenous production of DAP and SSP has recently seen a declining trend, which is one of the worrying factors for the industry.    

Domestic production of DAP had come down substantially from 4.85 million tonne in 2006-07 to 4.21 million tonne in 2007-08, while urea production was 20.3 million and 19.86 million tonne during the period, the sources said.    

The current year's import of at least three million tonne of DAP would continue be on the basis of international prices, the sources said.