Director General of Fertilizer Association of India Satish Chander reiterated here on Friday that fertilizer producers were ready to pay the price fixed by the government of India for natural gas.
If the demand for hiking gas price as demanded by the producer company was carried out, fertilizer industry would incur an extra expenditure of Rs. 10,000 to 11,000 crore a year. Since the price of gas will be subsidised by the government, the companies will have to borrow money if the government doesn’t pick up the subsidy bill on time. Timely payment of subsidy was already being heard in a court, he said.
Mr. Chander was speaking to reporters at the end of the southern regional conference of the Fertilizer Association of India’s Southern Regional Committee here at the FACT Ambalamedu House.
Chairman and Managing Director of FACT Jaiveer Srivastava was elected Chairman of the Fertilizer Association of India, Southern Regional Committee, here on Friday. The meeting of association’s Southern Regional Committee discussed the fertilizer scenario ahead of the new season and finalised the issues to be taken up with the government on a priority basis.
Mr. Chander and senior officials from fertilizer companies and their representatives in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands attended the meeting, said a press release from Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore.
FAI chief said three fertilizer companies in South India faced serious financial trouble if the government went ahead with its move to cut fuel subsidy from June this year. The FAI had registered its protest with the government, said Mr. Chander.
He said the fertilizer sector needed to be overhauled to make it sustainable and pointed to increased use of heavily subsidised inputs like urea, harming the soil health across the country. The situation in South India was better than in other parts of the country, especially in Haryana and Punjab, when it came to urea abuse, he said.
