Wednesday 11 December 2013

Fertiliser industry urges govt to allocate Rs 40,000 crore to clear subsidy dues

Concerned over acute liquidity crunch faced by the Indian fertiliser sector, the fertiliser industry has urged the Government to immediately allocate an additional Rs 40,000 crore to clear the subsidy dues for the current fiscal to help resolving the payment crisis faced by the industry. The ministry has pegged the subsidy requirement at Rs 1.07 lakh crore for the current fiscal including the arrears of Rs 32,000 crore out of which the Government had allocated only Rs 65,971 crore subsidy for the current fiscal, marginally lower than the previous year.

Further, the industry has said that the Government should make adequate budgetary allocation for 2014-15 keeping in view the realistic estimate for the current fiscal year and also make provision for providing interest on delayed payment of subsidy and freight bills beyond the prescribed time-limit of 45 days.

Meanwhile, in order to boost the fertilizer sector, the government has taken measures such as banking arrangement of Rs 5,500 crore of which fertiliser companies will get short-term credit from banks at a lower interest rate to partially address the payment crisis. Furthermore, it is also considering an additional Rs 10,000 crore more under the special banking arrangement against the subsidy due for the current year. Regarding the gas availability to fertilizer sector, the government has recently stated that the gas allocation policy will be revised to remove the cap imposed on the supply of domestic gas to fertiliser sector and accorded priority for gas utilisation policy 2008 in order to make new investments in the sector.

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