The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has presented his maiden Budget Speech in Parliament today. Jaitley said the Government intends to usher in a policy regime that would bring the desired growth, lower inflation, sustained level of external sector balance and prudent policy stance.
''The annual budget of the new government this year is rather disappointing for the fertiliser sector. Fertiliser industry has been facing severe liquidity crisis due to insufficient allocation of funds for fertiliser subsidy,'' according to The Fertiliser Association of India (FAI).
''Budget of this year again leaves a yawning gap between the requirement and allocation of funds of at least Rs 250 billion. Funds will again be exhausted in the middle of the year. And yet again, the industry will have to pursue with the government for allocations through supplementary grants or for bank loans as a last resort,'' it added.
Speaking on the import and tariff policy, Satish Chander, director general, FAI said ''The disappointing aspect is ignoring the request of industry for rationalizing the import duties on raw materials for production of phosphatic and potassic fertilisers. The domestic industry is facing unfair competition from imports when import duties on raw materials are equal to those for finished products.
This defies the basic tenet of tariff policy that duty on inputs should be lower than finished products when both are freely imported. This is highly discouraging for the phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilisers manufacturers in the country. This is even more surprising because the government has reduced import duties on imports for other sectors including chemicals and petro chemicals.''
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