Fertiliser subsidy has got a hike of around Rs 10,000 crore for the current financial year as per the Union Budget for 2019-20 which Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers DV Sadananda Gowda thanked the Finance Minister for increased allocation towards the fertilizer subsidy and said that the increased allocation would further help in increasing the efficiency of subsidy transfers to the farmers through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.

The fertiliser subsidy allocations have seen a hike of around Rs 10,000 crore from Rs 70,090.35 crore (Budget Estimates 2018-19) to Rs 79,996 crore (Budget Estimates 2019-20). Out of this allocation, urea subsidy comprises Rs 53,629 crore and nutrient-based subsidies Rs 26,367 crore, as per the Expenditure Profile 2019-20 document in the Budget.

The Fiscal Policy statement of the Budget mentions that a total of 610.08 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of fertilisers have been sold under the DBT scheme from March 2018 to May 2019. As this scheme has facilitated in the removal of fake or duplicate beneficiaries, there has been a reduction of 120.88 in fertiliser sales to retailers after the implementation of DBT scheme, an official statement said.

Further, the National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) have also seen a hike in allocations from Rs 135 crore (Budget Estimates 2018-19) to Rs 150 crore (Budget Estimates 2019-20).

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