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India's urea import has more than doubled to 58.62 lakh tonnes during April-October this year to meet domestic demand, the government on Monday said, while asserting that it has ensured adequate supply of fertilizers to farmers in the summer sowing season. "Between April and October 2025, India imported 58.62 lakh tonnes of agricultural-grade urea, compared to 24.76 lakh tonnes during the same period in the previous year," the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers said in a statement. Further, imports of 17.5 lakh tonnes are already lined up for November and December, it added. The Department of Fertilizers said it has ensured adequate availability of fertilizers, including urea, across the country during the kharif 2025 season. The government ensured that farmers received the required quantities of urea without any shortage. The availability of urea was 230.53 lakh tonnes, as against the projected requirement of 185.39 lakh tonnes. Sales stood at 193.20 lakh tonnes. "This reflect
Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said there is no shortage of crop nutrients in the country and asserted that there will be no hike in the prices of non-urea products. The minister also said that Nutrient Based Policy (NBS) for Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) fertilisers for the Rabi season (October 2022 to March 2023) will be announced shortly. "There is no shortage of fertilisers in the country," Mandaviya told reporters on the sidelines of the International Dairy Federation (IDF) World Dairy Summit here. He was responding to a query about the supply situation for the upcoming Rabi sowing season that would start from October. On when the government would announce the NBS policy for P&K fertilisers for the Rabi season, he said it will be done shortly after analysing international prices. "We will not allow any increase in retail prices of DAP (Di-ammonium Phosphate) and other non-urea fertilisers," Mandaviya said, adding that the government
The government is seriously considering options for decontrolling urea by either fixing a nutrient-based subsidy(NBS) rate or making direct payment of subsidy to farmers' account, Fertiliser Minister Sadananda Gowda said on Wednesday. In 2010, the government had launched the NBS programme under which a fixed amount of subsidy, decided on an annual basis, is provided on each grade of subsidised phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilizers, except for urea, based on the nutrient content present in them. "As far as change in the urea policy is concerned, we are open to suggestions. It can be NBS for urea or direct subsidy to the farmers account with decontrol of fertilizer sector. These are some of the alternatives which are under discussion," Gowda said while addressing an event organised by the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI) here. He further said that the government is "actively pursuing the issue of revision of fixed cost under urea policy" and added that any change in policy
The Union Cabinet is expected to consider a change in the New Urea Policy of 2015, to enable disbursal of higher subsidy to companies which perform better, based on the import parity price (IPP). A panel of ministers at a meeting scheduled for Friday is also expected to approve unrestricted export of all certified organic agricultural products.On urea, officials said the import parity price is calculated on the basis of the landed price. Incidentals like customs and port loading and handling charges are not included. This sometimes leads to less disbursal of subsidy to fertiliser companies, when the landed price falls sharply in international markets. This is because the subsidy is capped up to the IPP.If customs duty and port handling charges, estimated to be 5.65 per cent, are added to the landed price on any day for the purpose of subsidy calculation, it will lead to higher outgo for companies. The subsidy for urea is calculated on the basis of variable cost (mainly gas prices), ...