News: The draft Integrated Plant Nutrition Management Bill, 2022 has been put for the public comments.
About the Draft Integrated Plant Nutrition Management Bill, 2022
The bill has been criticised from various angles by various stakeholders in the fertilizer sector.
What are the criticisms against the bill?
Use of fertilisers: The bill aims to balance the use of different types of fertilizers in the light of over-use of urea. This imbalance can be corrected by rationalizing subsidies and not by enacting a new law.
Governance structure: At present, fertiliser sector is governed by two mechanism: 1) Fertiliser Movement Order (FMO), promulgated and enforced by the fertiliser ministry. It controls the production of fertilisers. 2) Fertiliser Control Order (FCO), issued and administered by the agriculture ministry. It controls the allocation of fertilisers to different states.
The inclusion of these provisions in the planned single statute may confuse the different stakeholders.
Inspector Raj: Bill may bring back the Inspector Raj of prior to economic liberalisation in 1991. It provides for fertiliser inspector with sweeping powers like entering, searching and confiscation of stocks in any premise in fertiliser sector for violation of bill’s provisions.
Complicated pricing system: Bill empowers central government to fix the maximum price at which fertilisers would be sold to the farmers. However, prices would differ for different consumers or classes of consumers in accordance with the local situation and period of storage of fertilisers. It will complicate the process of fertiliser pricing.
Over-regulation: It will also bring desi soil fertility-enhancers and crop yield-boosters, such as “Pachgavya Krishi” and “Amritpani” under price control and controls of other kinds. It means these products will be subject to bureaucratic controls and inspectorial scrutiny.
Source: This post is developed based on the article “Liberalise, do not bureaucratise” published in “Business Standard” on 28th Feb. 2022.
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