PICS: Jaitley's Budget for farmers!

UREA POLICY: The Budget 2014-15 has provided for a new urea policy. The Economic Survey for 2013-14 tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, July 9, lamented the government and farmers were together wasting funds of about more than Rs 8,500 crore on the fertiliser, while pitching for bringing urea under the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) regime. At present urea in under product based subsidy (PBS), under which for every tonne of urea farmers pay maximum fixed price of Rs 5,360 per tonne, whereas government pays about Rs 11,760 per tonne as subsidy for the same quantity, resulting in wastage of funds on government account. As the urea price, which is the main source of nitrogen (N), is highly subsidised, farmers are using it in place of phosphorous (P) and potassic (K) leading to unbalanced fertilisation in soil.