Barely a week before the Union Budget for 2010-11, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government today raised urea prices 10 per cent. It also allowed the industry to fix retail prices of other subsidised fertilisers, while limiting the government

Cabinet To Discuss Proposal To Rein In Subsidies; Alagiri Opposed
Subodh Ghildiyal | TNN

REVISED estimates of fertiliser subsidy for 2009-10 are likely to be around Rs 70,000 crore, almost same as in 2008-09, excluding special bonds worth Rs 20,000 crore.

The Centre allocated around Rs 49,980 crore this fiscal against a subsidy bill of Rs 1.17 lakh crore in 2008-09. This was also about 34.10% lower than the revised 2008-09 budget estimate of Rs 75,849 crore.

Fertiliser minister M K Alagiri, who is a senior leader of Congress ally DMK that opposes the oil price hike, has put on hold a 10-per cent raise in urea prices as well as price decontrol of potassic and phosphoric fertilisers despite a message from the Prime Minister

suitable for saline soils: Fertilizer bags being unloaded from a goods wagon at the yard in Tiruchi on Saturday.

TIRUCHI: The Indian Farmers

The government is planning to set up a Rs 1,000-crore Fertiliser Development Fund to provide loss making Fertiliser Corporation of India Limited (FCIL) a new lease of life. The fund will facilitate infusion of resources into FCIL

Surinder Sud / New Delhi November 10, 2009, 0:23 IST

The proposed policy of direct transfer of fertiliser subsidy to farmers is misconceived and inappropriate, according to a study by scholars of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

The study has discounted several common notions about fertiliser subsidy, including one that the bulk of it is cornered by large farmers.