Shailesh Menon & Gaurav Pai MUMBAI BULLS stormed fertiliser counters on Thursday, cheered by the government's measures aimed at improving profits of key companies in the sector. Most of these stocks shot up between 5% and 15% following the policy announcement.

MOVE TO ENCOURAGE RAISING LONG-TERM OUTPUT, CUT SOP BILL BY Rs 1,164 CR IN A move aimed at encouraging the fertiliser industry to raise its production outlay in the longer term, the government on Thursday announced a concession scheme for decontrolled phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilisers. The decision taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will fix concessions to producers with reference to global prices.

By G Manju Sainath, DH News Service, Bangalore: The violent and tragic twist to the shortage of fertilisers in the State claimed the lives of two farmers to police firing. As a possible answer to the fertiliser shortage, an agriculture scientist has suggested an effective substitute to chemical fertilisers.

THE spectacular rise in prices of crude oil and some food items may have hogged the limelight the world over, but the increase in prices of some fertilisers has left some other commodities pale in comparison. An official study on price movements of select food, energy and fertilisers shows that prices of some key fertilisers far outpaced the price hike in food or oil. Prices of rock phosphate, used in production of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and Muriate of Potash (MoP), have shot up by a mind boggling 707.69% by April 2008 over an average of January-March 2007.

THE government has directed Reliance Industries (RIL) to sell gas from the D6 Krishna Godavari basin in accordance with the marketing priorities determined by the government. RIL has been directed to give priority to fertiliser plants, followed by LPG and existing power plants while allocating gas. The company has also been directed to sell gas based on the formula approved by the government.

While the UPA government boasts of the Right to Information Act as among its major achievements, its own bureaucracy is clearly not impressed. Take the case of fertiliser secretary J.S Sarma who has warned the fertiliser industry and fertiliser associations against speaking to the media The secretary has apparently even gone to the extent of saying that he will stop all payment of subsidies to the industry if anyone spoke of fertiliser shortages. He has been claiming that there are adequate supplies of fertilisers in the country but industry sources dismiss his figures.

Pakistan Kisan Committee president Choudry Fateh Muhammad and Awami Jamhoori Party provincial secretary general advocate Rana Muhammad Azam have criticised the government for ignoring agriculture sector, especially the small farmers, in the proposed federal budget. Addressing a joint press conference here on Wednesday at the district press club, they said though subsidy had been increased on DAP fertilizer but its price was not fixed. They demanded the government should provide subsidy on all fertilizers and pesticides if it really wanted to help small farmers who were facing a crunch.

IN A BID to pre-empt the mounting pressure from the opposition parties and farmers' organisation for a judicial probe into the June 10 police firing at Haveri on farmers protesting against the non-availability of fertilisers, in which a farmer was killed, the BJP-led B S Yeddyurappa regime has appointed retired supreme court judge K Jagannath Shetty to probe into the incident.