New fertiliser subsidy policy to be taken up today

The Cabinet will on Thursday consider a new policy to give nutrient-based fertiliser subsidy directly to farmers instead of the industry.

Updated on: Feb 18, 2010, 24:02:58 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Cabinet will on Thursday consider a new policy to give nutrient-based fertiliser subsidy directly to farmers instead of the industry.

Under the new policy framework prepared by a Group of Ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukerjee, each district of the country will have a laboratory to test nutrient quality of the soil.

To avail of the subsidy, a farmer will have to get the soil test done at the laboratory. The government will give subsidy to the farmer only for those chemicals, which are found to be deficient in the soil. “This will helping in improving the soil quality, which in states such as Punjab and Haryana has deteriorated because of extensive use of fertilisers,” a government official said.

The price of each nutrient will be uniform across all subsidised fertilisers and the selling price of the fertiliser will be determined on the basis of the nutrients in it.

The government aims to keep the fertiliser prices under check, which has increased five times between 2004 and ’09. It will also reduce the Centre’s annual fertiliser bill of Rs 1,00,000 crore substantially. If the present system continues, the government is estimated to spend Rs 1,73,000 crore on fertiliser subsidy by 2011-12, the end of the 11th plan period.

The Cabinet is also expected to look into the India-US agreement on agriculture cooperation and food security.

“A MoU on Agricultural Cooperation and Food Security will set a pathway to robust cooperation between the governments in crop forecasting, management and market information, regional and global food security, science, technology, and expanding private sector investment in agriculture,” a White House statement issued at the time of Prime Minister’s visit, said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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