The government plans to cut its subsidy bill to under 2% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012-13, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said in his budget speech on Friday. High crude oil prices and burgeoning fertilizer subsidies, primarily on account of imported non-urea fertilizers, have meant India’s subsidy bill has zoomed to Rs2.16 trillion, or 2.5% of the GDP. Mukherjee has set an ambitious target to reduce this to under 1.75%...

-PTI The government has pegged its outgo on food, fuel and fertiliser subsidies in the 2012-13 fiscal at over Rs1.79 lakh crore, nearly 14% lower than the revised estimates for the current fiscal. According to the Budget proposals, the government's subsidy bill on food, petroleum and fertilisers is estimated at Rs1,79,554 crore for the 2012-13 fiscal as against Rs2,08,503 crore in the revised estimates for this fiscal. Interestingly, the revised estimate for this...

The government is likely to peg fertiliser subsidy for next financial year at Rs 66,000 crore, lower than the actual outgo in 2011-12.  "A moderate increase is likely," said a government official. The actual subsidy bill for the fiscal is likely to come at over Rs 70,000 crore though the government had budgeted for just Rs 49,997 crore in the budget 2011-12.  Private analysts had soon after the presentation of the last...

'Erratic rainfall and rising input costs forcing farmers to migrate' “Unable to clear a loan of Rs 2 lakh, my son committed suicide. I had to sell my ancestral house and cattle to repay the loan,” says Lakshmi Devi, 48, of Pathakotha Cheruvu village in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Devi's woes did not end with the repayment of loan. Managing her farm is becoming increasingly difficult, partly because it is expensive,...

In a move that could hurt millions of farmers, the government plans to increase the price of urea and link it to the price of gas in an attempt to reduce its burgeoning fertilizer subsidy bill. Urea is the only fertilizer that has a maximum retail price (MRP) still controlled by the government, which deregulated those of all others in April 2010. Urea sells in the market at Rs.5,310 per tonne,...