Govt rejects reports of urea decontrol, 40% price hike

17 Jan 2012 Evaluate

Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has gone on to rubbish the reports that emerged on January 16, 2012, which claimed that the government is contemplating the idea of decontrolling urea prices and hiking prices of urea, the most commonly used fertilizer, by 40 percent. Srikant Kumer Jena, the Minister of State (MoS) for Chemicals and Fertilizers, clarified that the retail price of urea is notified by the government, which is currently prevailing at Rs 5,310/MT and that the reports in the media are factually incorrect and baseless, as no such proposal is under consideration.

Fertilizer Secretary Ajay Bhattacharya too elucidated that there is no plans to decontrol the urea sector while the ministry is not looking into any such proposal to hike urea prices as sharply as 40 percent. The government has full control over the prices of urea only while prices of all other fertilizer products like phosphatic and potassium fertilizer were partially freed in the last fiscal by announcing the Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) Policy.

The fertilizer ministry is currently seeking different views from various ministries on the draft NBS policy prepared by the Committee of Secretaries (Cos), which recommended partial decontrol of urea prices but the final decision will be taken at the Cabinet level. The government has of-late remained apprehensive over the move to partially decontrol the urea prices especially because prices of phosphatic and potassium fertilisers have been rising at a steady pace post the partial decontrolling, adversely affecting the end users like farmers.

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