Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, presenting the 2012 budget on Friday said the growth of the Indian economy, estimated at 6.9 per cent during this fiscal year, was “disappointing”.

“The global crisis has affected us. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to grow at 6.9 per cent in 2011-12, after having grown at 8.4 per cent in each of the two preceding years,” the finance minister said at the beginning of his seventh budget presentation in the Lok Sabha.

Water pollution from agriculture is costing billions of dollars a year in developed countries and is expected to increase in China and India as farmers race to increase food production, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

“Pollution from farm pesticides and fertilizers is often diffuse, making it hard to pin down exactly where it’s coming from,” Kevin Parris, author of a report from the Paris-based organization, said in an interview in Marseille.

New Delhi: A billion-dollar venture of public sector cooperatives Iffco and Kribhco in Oman is in jeopardy as Muscat has trebled the price of gas it supplies to India’s only overseas fertilizer pla

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday demanded early revival of the Talcher plant of the Fertiliser Corporation of India Limited (FCIL).

New Delhi Investors setting up greenfield urea production plants will be given subsidy to cover the cost of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) up to $17-18 per million metric British thermal unit (mmBtu), a generous concession that will also take care of freight charges and marketing margins charged by the suppliers.

Currently, LNG is available in global spot markets at about $14-15 per unit excluding such incidental costs, a price that was previously considered by the Pranab Mukherjee-led group of ministers as part of a new policy to promote investments in the sector.

No fresh taxes except on tobacco products y VAT on cooking gas, fertilisers goes y Sops for IT, science,

The Government announced on Thursday a cut in subsidy on complex non-urea fertilisers for fiscal 2012-13, following decline in global prices and an appreciating rupee.

The government has a set a target to reduce the dependence on chemical fertilizer by at least 50 per cent in the next five years by encouraging farmers to use organic manure.

Replying to R. Reddappa Reddy (Congress) during question hour in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana said the Centre was extending Rs.10,000 crore subsidy on chemical fertilizer whose price was increasing steadily.

In the remote Kailashnagar village (Jalore district), on the border of Rajasthan and Gujarat, lives Parbhu Ram, a farmer who has never been to either Punjab or Haryana.