Parties Flay Urea Price Hike

The 10 per cent hike in urea price, announced formally by the government in Parliament today, came in for sharp criticism from Rajya Sabha members, who felt that other means should have been tried to curb imbalance in fertiliser use.

The members, cutting across party lines, urged the government to revive sick fertiliser units and help improve the overall efficiency of the fertiliser industry to reduce fertiliser subsidy without putting any additional burden on the farmers. The criticism came in response to the suo moto statement made in both houses by agriculture minister Chaturnan Mishra, announcing the cabinets recent decision to raise urea price by 10 per cent and use the money so collected for increasing the existing concession on phosphatic and potassic fertilisers. Mishra said concession on di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) would go up by Rs 750 per tonne and that on muriate of potash (MOP) by Rs 500 per tonne.

Single super phosphate (SSP) fertiliser would get an additional concession of Rs 100 per tonne. The concession on complex fertilisers (having more than one nutrients) would also rise proportionately.

The minister also announced the the governments decision to subsidise transportation of decontrolled phosphatic and potassic fertilisers to parts of Jammu and Kashmir and north-eastern states.

He indicated that certain other measures were being considered to promote fertiliser use in low-consumption areas.

Mishra pointed out that the application of the three major plant nutrients nitrogen (N), phosphate (P) and potash (K) had become highly disproportionate after the decontrol of phosphatic and potassic fertiliser prices.

The N:P:K ratio, which stood at 5.9 : 2.4 : 1 in 1991 deteriorated to 8.5 : 2.5 : 1 by 1995-96.

This was because the farmers started using an excess of nitrogenous fertilisers, notably urea, and reduced the application of phophatic and potassic fertilisers. The governments present move was intended to promote the use of phosphatic and potassic fertilisers to improve balance in the application of three nutrients. He, however, made it clear that the fertiliser pricing policy would be finalised only after receiving the report of the Hanumantha Rao committee which was going into this issue.

Seeking clarifications on the ministers statement, Giri Prasad (CPI) said the government should bring all fertilisers under price control. S.K. Singla (C) felt that increase in urea price would hurt farmers in Punjab who were the major consumers of this fertiliser. Describing it as a regressive measures, he said other means should have been adopted to restore balance in fertiliser application. S.S. Ahluwalia (C) suggested that loans should be given to the fertilised industry for modernisation of their plants to bring down cost of production.