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Fertiliser subsidy bill likely to go up by Rs 10-15,000 cr by Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Despite partial decontrol of two classes of fertilisers from April last year, the total fertiliser subsidy requirement for the fiscal is likely to go up by about Rs 10,000-15,000 crore from the Rs 54,981 crore already provided as fertiliser consumption has shot up due to a good monsoon. Besides, importers of phosphatic and potash fertilisers have recently raised prices in line with rising global prices.

The finance ministry is likely to allow most of the extra requirement of subsidy in the third supplementary demands for grants, while a small portion may be carried over to the next fiscal, which is the general practice.

The higher fertiliser consumption has reflected in the spectacular turnaround in the official estimate of agriculture output growth of 5.4% this fiscal compared to a paltry 0.4% growth in the drought hit 2009-10.

“Obviously, fertiliser consumption has shot up this year by about 20% and we made the commodity available across the country as per the requirement of state governments,” fertiliser secretary Sutanu Behuria told FE.

Although subsidy requirement for 2009-10, a drought year, was Rs 52,980 crore, the government budgeted for a subsidy of Rs 49,981 crore in 2010-11 assuming that the partial decontrol of phosphatic and potash fertilisers, would bring down the subsidy requirement. However, an increase in the retail price of imported phosphatic and potash fertilisers and the increase in consumption has led to the higher subsidy requirement this year.

In the second supplementary demands for grants, the finance ministry provided an extra Rs 5,000 crore, taking the total subsidy so far to Rs 54,981 crore. In spite of the extra subsidy required over and above the budget estimates, the total subsidy bill for this fiscal would be far less than what was provided in 2008-09 when commodity prices touched historical levels globally. In 2008-09, the net incidence of subsidy was Rs 1,11,614 crore.

The government is now trying to find a solution to reduce the subsidy burden by deregulating urea prices too, but political opposition from agriculture oriented states such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab and the high food inflation are expected to discourage such a move.