Record urea production at 24.5 million tonnes in 2015-16

New Delhi: India produced a record 24.5 million tonnes of urea in 2015-16, the highest ever quantity of the commonly used fertilizer, chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar said on Thursday.

Production of urea is 2 million tonnes more than the year before, and together with timely imports this has ensured adequate availability of the fertiliser across the country, the minister said. He added that higher domestic production has led to lower imports.

The increased production is equivalent to the production capacity of almost two new urea plants without any additional investment, Kumar said, adding, the new urea policy implemented since last year and a reform-oriented action plan of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government helped in this success.

The minister further said the mandatory neem coating of urea has ensured that the subsidised fertilizer cannot be diverted for industrial use. “Neem coated urea also has the benefit of slow release of nitrogen and hence its consumption is less compared to un-coated urea,” the minister said.

India imports nearly a quarter of its domestic demand every year. While the country needs 30 million tonnes of urea, production was stagnant at around 22 million.

While neem coating of urea is likely to reduce use of the chemical fertiliser by farmers, the government has also launched a soil health card scheme to promote balanced use of fertilisers in 2014.

Against a target of testing 10.4 million soil samples from farmers’ fields in 2015-16, nearly 6 million samples were tested, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday.

In 2015-16, about 4.5 crore soil health cards were distributed to farmers, the ministry said, adding, this will help the farmer realize higher yields at lower cost.

Farmers in India tend to overuse urea as it is cheaper and highly subsidized compared to other macronutrients such as phosphorous and potassium fertilizers.

The result is a declining response of crops-to-fertilizer use; the amount of foodgrain produced per kg of fertilizer applied declined from around 13kg in the 1970s to less than 4kg by 2010, according to data from the fertilizer ministry.

Fertiliser subsidies saw a marginal cut in the union budget presented last month, from Rs.72,438 crore in 2015-16 (revised estimate) to Rs.70,000 crore in 2016-17.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.