Patna, Nov. 8: Bihar has urged the Centre to take a re-look into its policy pertaining to decontrol of fertiliser and petroleum product prices in the wake of “steep” hike in their rates in the past one year.
As things stand now, the Centre has no control over prices of fertilisers except urea and it has given liberty to petroleum companies to fix price of petrol.
Prices of diesel, kerosene and LPG are still under the control of the central government.
“I am going to raise this issue during my meeting with Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee at Delhi on November 9,” deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told journalists in the post-weekly janata darbar news meet today.
Modi will meet Mukherjee in connection with the discussions related to implementation of goods and services taxes (GST) in the country.
The Bihar deputy chief minister is heading the empowered committee of finance ministers of state, which has been set up for implementation of GST in India.
Referring to “steep” hike in prices of fertilisers, Modi said: “After deregulation of fertiliser prices in April 2010, price of DAP has gone up from Rs 517 per quintal to Rs 955 per quintal in Bihar, whereas in case of NPK category of fertilisers, the rate has more than doubled than its price of Rs 374 per quintal a year earlier.”
DAP refers for di-ammonium phosphate, NPK refers to compounds of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium used as fertilisers.
Modi said that this steep rise had taken place despite the fact that there was a tacit understanding between the central government and the fertiliser companies that the prices would not be raised more than 10 per cent in one year.
“The price rise is not only making holes in the pockets of farmers but also ushering in a new trend where it has been observed that use of urea is on the rise. Such a trend would adversely affect the fertility of arable land,” he added.
Punjab has witnessed problem such as overuse of urea that has rendered vast tracts of arable land barren.
With inputs cost going up, Bihar is also demanding increase in support price of wheat. “The minimum support price for wheat for the current year has been fixed at Rs 1,285 per quintal but we are of the opinion that it should be Rs 1,500 per quintal if farmers’ interests have to be kept in mind,” Modi said.
Putting a question mark on the mechanism used by the commission for agricultural costs and prices (CACP), Modi said CACP should bring the mechanism in public domain so that people can know about the inputs on the basis of which minimum support prices for different crops are decided.
As things stand now these details are not brought to public domain.
He also expressed concern over recent talks to decontrol the prices of urea and diesel. “Such a step would affect the masses and the government should not adhere to such advices,” he said.
Modi, in fact, said that with Rabi crop season at hand, the Centre should think in terms of going back to the regime of controlled prices for fertilisers as a good amount of DAP and NPK fertilisers are used for these crops.
Replying to a query about shortage of fertilisers in peak agricultural season, Modi said companies were responsible for the crisis as they didn’t book sufficient number of rakes to ensure timely and sufficient supply of fertilisers and it led to artificial crisis of fertilisers in the market.
