Govt constitutes GoM to look into urea pricing policy

24 Jan 2013 Evaluate

Concerned about the increasing subsidy burden and imbalanced use of fertilizers, the government has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into urea pricing, which is expected to be chaired by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. The GoM will also include Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Fertilizer Minister M K Alagiri and Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily.

The move to send the proposal back to the GoM on urea prices was taken after the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs’ (CCEA) decision in June 2012, the Ministry had some three months back sent its revised proposal to Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Last week, PMO acted on the proposal and asked a GoM to be formed to reconsider the urea pricing policy. The constitution of the GOM comes in the backdrop of stiff resistance by Fertilizer Ministry in raising urea prices and bringing the sector under the nutrient based policy (NBS) like P&K fertilizers.

The GoM will look into the modified New Pricing Scheme (NPS) III for urea as well as consider earlier proposals for de-regulating the sector. Urea is the only fertilizer that remains under full price control. Its current retail price is Rs 5,360 per tonne. The proposal to hike urea prices was made to level out the imbalanced use of soil nutrients and reduce government's subsidy burden.

However, department of fertilizers is not in favour of raising the prices of the key nitrogenous crop nutrient as the farmers are already facing high prices of phosphatic (P) and potassic (K) fertilizers. In June last year, CCEA had deferred the ministry's proposal to raise the retail prices of urea by 10%. It had sent the proposal back for review to the then GoM, which was headed by then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Earlier, the government had plans to decontrol the urea sector by bringing it under the nutrient based subsidy (NBS) scheme. However, the proposal hit a road block as the fertiliser ministry, among others, opposed it in view of increase in retail prices of P&K fertilisers after they were decontrolled in April 2010.

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