‘India will keep importing fertilizers from Russia as long as possible’
- December 1, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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‘India will keep importing fertilizers from Russia as long as possible’
Subject : Environment
PM Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana (PM PRANAM)-
- Objectives: To encourage the balanced use of fertilisers in conjunction with biofertilisers and organic fertilisers.
- Aim: To bring down the subsidy burden on chemical fertilisers, which is estimated to reach Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-23 — 39% higher than 2021 figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore.
Features of the Proposed Scheme:
- The scheme will have no separate budget and will be financed through the “savings of existing fertiliser subsidy” under schemes run by the Department of Fertilizers.
- 50% of subsidy savings will be passed on as a grant to the state that saves the money.
- 70% of the grant provided under the scheme can be used for asset creation related to the technological adoption of alternate fertilisers and alternate fertiliser production units at the village, block and district levels.
- The remaining 30% grant money can be used for rewarding and encouraging farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations and self-help groups that are involved in the reduction of fertiliser use and awareness generation.
- The calculation of reducing chemical fertiliser use of urea in a year will be compared to the average consumption of urea during the last three years.
- For this purpose, data available on a Fertilizer Ministry dashboard, IFMS (Integrated Fertilizers Management System) will be used.
Shortage of fertilizers-
- As per the central government, overall availability of fertilizers is very good. But there are some reports of shortages of DAP in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
- There is requirement of 55 lakh tonnes DAP for the current rabi season, while the supply is 39.10 lakh metric tonnes.
Promoting nano-urea-
- Nano urea is a liquid fertilizer developed by IFFCO. It is an alternative to conventional urea.
- It is essentially urea in the form of a nanoparticle.
- Urea is a chemical nitrogen fertilizer, white in colour, which artificially provides nitrogen, a major nutrient required by plants.
- Aim: It aims to reduce farmers’ dependence on packaged urea.
- Fertiliser Control Order (FCO) 1985: It is based on existing rules that provisionally allow fertilizers to be used based on data from only two cropping seasons.
- The usual practice for recommending or rejecting a new fertilizer for commercial use required three seasons of independent assessment by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), but in the case of nano urea this was reduced to two.
- Currently India have only one operational nano urea plant, which manufactures 5 crore bottles a year.
- By 2025, we will have up to 44 crore bottles in 10 plants.
What is the Present Status of Fertilizer Usage in India?
- The expenditure on fertiliser subsidy was 1.62 lakh crore in 2020-21 and could cross Rs 2.25 lakh crore during 2022.
- The total requirement of four fertilisers — Urea, DAP (Di-ammonium Phosphate), MOP (Muriate of potash), NPKS (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) — in the country increased by 21% to 640.27 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) in 2021-22 from 528.86 lakh metric tonnes in 2017-18.
- The maximum increase — 25.44% — has been recorded in the requirement of DAP. It went up from 98.77 LMT in 2017-18 to 123.9 LMT in 2021-22.
- Urea, the most used chemical fertiliser in the country, recorded an increase of 19.64 per cent — from 298 LMT in 2017-18 to 356.53 in 2021-22 — in the last five years.