{"id":66882,"date":"2020-10-19T22:50:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T17:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=66882"},"modified":"2020-10-30T12:55:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T07:25:36","slug":"nutrient-based-subsidy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/nutrient-based-subsidy\/","title":{"rendered":"Nutrient-based subsidy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context<\/strong>: Cap on subsidised fertiliser under nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) only addresses issue of its diversion, doesn\u2019t fix overuse by farmers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime for fertilisers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Under the scheme, a fixed amount of subsidy, based on the nutrient content present in them is provided on each grade of subsidized Phosphatic and Potassic (P&amp;K) fertilizer except Urea.<\/li>\n<li>It was expected that the NBS scheme will control farmers from applying too much urea containing only nitrogen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Was the Nutrient-Based Subsidy (NBS) regime successful?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No, the actual results prove otherwise. Between 2009-10 and 2019-20, urea consumption increased.<\/li>\n<li>The reason for this is, Since April 2010, the maximum retail price (MRP) of urea has been raised by hardly 11 per cent.<\/li>\n<li>Whereas the MRPs of other fertilisers that were decontrolled, with the government only giving a per-tonne subsidy based on their nutrient content has gone up from 2.5 to four times during these 10 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are the steps taken to prevent overuse of Urea?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Compulsory neem-coating of all urea from December 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Making fertiliser subsidy payment to companies\u2019 conditional upon actual sales to farmers being registered on point-of-sale machines with retailers after biometric authentication.<\/li>\n<li>Along with this, there is an upcoming plan to cap the total number of subsidised fertiliser bags that any person can purchase during an entire cropping season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the reason for the policy failure?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Urea Under-priced<\/strong>: The basic MRP of urea hasn\u2019t been revised at all in its nearly six-and-a-half years. So, less cost leading to more consumption.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Failed to bring urea under NBS:<\/strong> This would have pushed up its MRP\u00a0thereby encouraging farmers for balanced use of fertilisers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Failed policy approach<\/strong>: Even, the measures taken to prevent over use of Urea merely address the issue of subsidised fertilisers, especially urea, getting diverted to bulk buyers\/traders or even non-agricultural users.\u00a0It does not address overuse by farmers themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bringing urea under nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Increasing the MRP of Urea to Rs 10,000 per tonne<\/strong> over two years and simultaneously reducing the NBS rates of phosphorus, potash and sulphur.<\/li>\n<li>In the long run, <strong>NBS should be replaced by<\/strong> <strong>a flat per-acre cash subsidy<\/strong> that could be used to purchase any fertiliser.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: Cap on subsidised fertiliser under nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) only addresses issue of its diversion, doesn\u2019t fix overuse by farmers. What is nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) regime for fertilisers? Under the scheme, a fixed amount of subsidy, based on the nutrient content present in them is provided on each grade of subsidized Phosphatic and Potassic (P&amp;K)&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/nutrient-based-subsidy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nutrient-based subsidy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[1285,1265],"class_list":["post-66882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-agri_0","tag-agri_01","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":135,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}