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).
