Fertilizer sales up by 5% to 174.4 lakh tonnes in April-July

2023-08-24 15:36:23

Fertilizer sales during first four months of the current fiscal have increased by 5 per cent to 174.37 lakh tonnes (lt) mainly due to a nine per cent increase in consumption in July. The fertilizer subsidy, accordingly, has reached ₹73,214.67 crore, which is 42 per cent of budget estimate for the current fiscal. But, sales are lower than the estimate for the period which indicates that farmers have stayed away in view of the dry spell in different parts during June-July.

Since April-July is the key period when farmers buy the fertilizers for the kharif season, sales are 17 per cent lower than the demand of 209 lt. the Government had estimated during the Kharif conference held in May. The total demand for fertilizers (except Single Super Phosphates) for the entire season (April-September) has been estimated at 303.61 lt.

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Rainfall dependant

For August, the government has estimated the fertilizer requirement at 54.11 lt which includes 33.57 lt of urea, 7.47 lt of DAP, 2.49 lt of MOP and 10.58 lt of complex. Besides, SSP demand has been pegged at 5.83 lt for this month. Sources said total sales so far this month are less than 25 lt, which could not be verified as the government withheld the information by restricting the dashboard from public access two years ago.

“Fertilizer sales are dependent on rainfall and a large part of the country is deficient. Not only that, the rainfall was experienced for a few days in a month and due to heavy downpour it reduced the overall deficit or showing surplus whereas the frequency of rainfall has been less this year,” said a fertilizer industry expert. However, the industry is hopeful for a recovery in demand as the weather bureau has predicted normal monsoon in September.

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According to official data, urea sales were up by 3.3 per cent at 107.13 lt during April-July from the year-ago period, that of DAP by 11.1 per cent to 34.65 lt and complex by 6.1 per cent to 28.98 lt. But MOP purchases recorded a drop of 9.8 per cent at 3.61 lt.

India Meteorological Department on Thursday said widespread rainfall with isolated heavy rainfall is likely to be seen over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, east Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, Odisha on August 24-25. Also, it has not predicted any rainfall activities in southern or western parts of the country for next five days.

Even though the fertiliser sales have not been up to expectations, imports have surged by 7.7 per cent to 60.33 lt during April-July, thanks to very high volume of DAP purchased from abroad. The import of urea, which is completely under government control, has declined 32 per cent to 14.87 lt and that of complex by 16.7 per cent to 9.21 lt. But DAP import surged 52.8 per cent to 26.59 lt and that of MOP by 70.1 per cent to 9.66 lt.