CHANDIGARH JUNE 11: In a bid to offset the effect of recent hike in the prices of DAP (Di-ammonium Phosphate) and NPK (Nitrogen Phosphorous and Potash), the Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today demanded from the Centre a sufficient increase in the subsidy per unit of the nutrient immediately to ensure availability of these fertilizers to the farmers of the state at the same prices prevailing during the last kharif season.
In a statement, the Chief Minister slammed the Congress led UPA government for the shift of its policy from product to nutrient based pricing which made the prices of the fertilizers vulnerable to the prices in the international market. As now the prices of DAP and NPK were firming up in the international market, Mr. Badal asked the Centre to share this burden by way of making corresponding hike in the subsidy per unit of the nutrient instead of passing the entire buck on the beleaguered farmers in the new fertilizer regime.
Blaming the Centre, Mr. Badal said that this policy was formulated with a sole objective of promoting balanced use of nutrients but the hidden agenda of the Congress was to curtail the subsidy bill of the government. On the contrary it had adversely hit the farmers due to repeated doses of exorbitant hike in the prices of fertilizers ever since the GoI had decontrolled the fertilizers in 2011. “In other words, the Centre was covertly withdrawing whatever little bit it is giving to the famers in terms of increase in MSP from the farmers” said Mr. Badal.
It may added that the average annual consumption of DAP and NPK fertilizers in the state was about 9 lac MT and would put an additional burden of nearly Rs.500 crore on the hapless farmers of the state thereby further accentuating their miseries, as the majority of them were already reeling under heavy farm debt. With the recent hike in the prices of fertilizers, the new price of 50 kg bag of DAP and NPK would be Rs.1200 and Rs.1115 respectively, an increase of Rs.295 per bag.
