To support the farmers, who are struggling with rising commodity prices during the ongoing crop season, Union Cabinet increased the nutrient-based- subsidy rates for phosphatic & potassium fertilizers including diammonium phosphate.
Now farmers will receive subsidy of Rs. 1,200 per DAP bag against the previous cap of Rs. 500 - at an additional cost of Rs. 14,775 crore to the exchequer, government informed after the cabinet meeting.
In last few months, the global prices of raw materials of DAP and P&K fertilizers have increased rapidly. The prices of finished DAP in global markets have also increased. Despite this rapid increase, the DAP prices in India were initially not increased by the companies; however, some companies have raised DAP price in beginning of this fiscal.
The government is completely sensitive to the concerns of farmers, and is already taking steps to tackle the situation so that the farming community can be saved from the effects of this price rise of P&K.
Considering the recent crisis of pricing the DAP in India, as an unprecedented state of affairs & distress for farmers, Centre has increased the subsidy rates under the NBS scheme as a special package for the farmers in such a way that most retail value of DAP including other P&K fertilizers can be saved at last year’s level till the present kharif season. This has been performed as a one-time measure as Covid package to reduce the hardship of farmers.
Even an international cost would come down in just a few months after the crop season and the government may review the situation and fix or evaluate the state of affairs and fix the subsidy charges accordingly.
The price of fertilizers subsidy is fixed by the government in advance, while the retail price may even seem fluctuations relying on the worldwide price of the commodity. Unlike the backed cooking gasoline, the place subsidy is directly paid to the consumers, the federal government provides the subsidy to the fertilizer’s companies, in return it sells the product in reduced price.
The government has taken a pro-farmer decision in the current previous, which seen as a concerted effort to placate farmers protesting over the new farm legal guidelines and the Union authorities launched the eighth instalment of PM Kisan Yojana by transferring ₹20,000 crore to 95 million farmers.
The cabinet approved a deep ocean mission to seek for the assets & develop deep-sea technology for the sustainable use of ocean resources. The 5-year mission, with an expenditure of ₹4,077 crore, will help in finding out the ocean biology and local weather change, and set up the offshore stations to discover the vitality resources.
Prakash Javadekar, the union minister told that only five countries including – US, France, Russia, Japan and China have this technology.
The Union cabinet said that the mission will discover changes, because of the climatic change, to study more about the deep-sea biodiversity, a deep-sea survey, an advanced marine station for the ocean biology and there will also be offshore ocean station to explore, thermal energy as part of the mission. Adding all of this will aid the “Blue Economy”, and there are some key components that includes in developing a manned submersible, this mission will also support the development of the human capacity & enterprise in the ocean biology and engineering. The component will translate the research into the industrial application and the development of product through on-site business incubator facilities.
