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New Investment Policy 2012:
- The Government had notified New Investment Policy – 2012 in January, 2013 with the main objective to facilitate fresh investment, make India self-reliant and reduce import dependency in urea sector.
Neem-coated Urea:
- Urea that is coated with neem tree seed oil is called neem-coated urea.
- The Department of Fertilizers has made it mandatory for all the domestic producers to produce 100% urea as Neem Coated Urea (NCU).
Benefits of NCU include:
- Slow down the process of nitrification of urea
- Enhance the yield
- Decrease urea requirement, hence save money
New Urea Policy 2015:
- The New Urea Policy was released in May 2015.
The Policy seeks to:
- Increase indigenous urea production,
- Promote energy efficiency in urea production, and
- Reduce subsidy burden on the Central government.
Nutrient Based Subsidy Scheme:
- Nutrient Based Subsidy Programme for fertilizers was initiated in 2010.
- Under the scheme, a fixed rate of subsidy (in Rs per kg basis) is announced for nutrients namely Nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P), Potash (K) and Sulphur (S) by the government on an annual basis.
- It aims at ensuring the balanced use of fertilizers, improving agricultural productivity, promoting the growth of the indigenous fertilizers industry and also reducing the burden of Subsidy.
Gas Pooling in Fertilizers:
- Currently, there are 30 urea producing units in the country, out of which 27 units are gas based and 3 units are Naphtha based.
- Gas Pooling mechanism was introduced by the Government in 2015.
- It is intended to supply gas at uniform delivered price to all fertilizer plants on the gas grid for production of urea through a pooling mechanism.
One Nation One Fertiliser Scheme
- Under the scheme, all fertiliser companies, State Trading Entities and Fertiliser Marketing Entities will be required to use a single “Bharat” brand for fertilisers and logo under the Pradhanmantri Bhartiya JanurvarakPariyojna (PMBJP).