Status of Import and Availability of Fertilizers

Status of Import and Availability of Fertilizers

            Urea is the only fertilizer under statutory price control and its import is restricted and permitted through State Trading Enterprises (STEs) namely MMTC Limited, State Trading Corporation Limited and Indian Potash Limited under the Foreign Trade Policy of the Government.  Urea for direct agricultural use is imported on Government account to bridge the gap between assessed demand and indigenous production. Government is also importing approximately 20 Lakh Metric Tonnes urea from Oman India Fertiliser Company (OMIFCO) under a Long Term Urea Off Take Agreement between GOI & OMIFCO. The import of urea from OMIFCO is made through M/s IFFCO & M/s KRIBHCO. The year-wise quantity and value of urea imported during the last three years and current year (up to June, 2015) are as under:-

Year	From OMIFCO	Through STE	Total Urea Imported	Value
	(LMT)	(LMT)	(LMT)	(Million US$)
2012-13	18.33	62.11	80.44	3,009.49
2013-14	21.21	49.68	70.89	1,968.36
2014-15	14.63	72.86	87.49	2,477.27
2015-16*	5.15	9.57	14.72	355.05

* upto June, 2015

Import of fertilizers (other than Urea) is free, commonly known as Open General Licence (OGL). Various companies import these fertilizers as per their commercial judgement. Government do not maintain the value of these imports. The year-wise details of quantity of P&K fertilizers imported during the last three years and current year (up to June, 2015) are as under:-

                                                                                  <Figures in Lakh MT>

Year	DAP	NPK	MOP#
2012-13	57.02	4.05	24.95
2013-14	32.61	3.62	31.80
2014-15	38.53	2.91	41.97
2015-16*	25.50	3.20	6.69

* upto June, 2015

^# MOP includes both for use as direct application as well as NPK manufacture.

The countries from where the fertilizers have been imported during the last three years and current year are Australia, Belarus, China, Canada, CIS, Estonia, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Oman, Russia, S. Arabia, Spain, Ukraine, USA and Vietnam.

            Adequate urea and other fertilizers were available during the rabi, 2014-15 and Kharif, 2015 season. The details are as below:

<Figures in LMT>

Rabi 2014-15
Fertilizer	Requirement	Availability	Sales
Urea	160.11	170.09	168.79
P&K	113.49	108.46	99.27

<Figures in LMT>

Kharif 2015
Fertilizer	Requirement (April-June,15)	Pre-positioning Feb-Mar,15	Opening Stock as on 01.0415	Fresh Receipt	Availability (prepositioning in Feb/Mar, 15)	Sales (Apl-Jun, 2015)
Urea	73.29	24.80	1.30	71.58	97.69	70.20
P&K	58.36	11.98	9.20	49.91	80.11	44.13
Total	131.65	36.78	10.50	121.49	177.80	114.33

            The Fertiliser (Control) Order (FCO), 1985 has been promulgated under section 3 of the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955 to regulate quality of fertilizers. At present, there are 78 notified Fertilizer Quality control Laboratories (FQCLs) in the country. The fertilizer inspectors of the Central government draw the samples of imported fertilizers from the ships/containers at ports and send the samples to CFQC&TI and its three regional centres for testing. The fertiliser inspectors of State Governments draw the samples from the dealers/wholesalers and send the samples to their State Government laboratories for testing. The laboratories analyze the samples as per the test procedures prescribed in the FCO and these procedures are as per international recognized standards/methods.

            Government is always encouraging production of fertilizers in the country to achieve self-sufficiency. The Government has notified the New Investment Policy (NIP) 2008 and 2012 on 4^th September, 2008 and 2^nd January, 2013 respectively and Modified New Pricing Scheme (NPS)-III on 2^nd April, 2014 to facilitate extra domestic production of urea and for fresh investment in urea sector to reduce India’s import dependency.