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Garma
Garam More |
Environment |
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Need to go
beyond fertilisers
By
Vinod Mehta THE
use of fertilisers has played a significant role in raising the productivity of
Indian agriculture. It is common knowledge that the Green Revolution was based
on a package of agricultural inputs which included fertilisers, water,
high-yielding varieties of seeds, etc.
Today
fertilisers are gaining prominence as an important agricultural input in our
quest for attaining consistent surplus in the agricultural sector.
No
wonder the government has a separate Ministry of Fertilisers for the past so
many years, and along with that from time to time chemicals and pharmaceuticals
sectors have been added to it. The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers has
come out with its six-monthly performance report on the pattern of the
half-yearly results of the corporate sector.
In
such reports only the brighter sides are generally highlighted. But one would
always expect that performance reports also highlight the problems in those
sectors which have an important bearing on the nation. The report card of the
Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers reads well, but there are certain
important issues which have been glossed over.
Both
the production and use of fertilisers have been increasing by leaps and bounds
in the past more than four decades and a half. The available data show that the
production of fertilisers has increased from 80,000 tonnes in 1955-56 to
85,99,000 tonnes in 1996-97. Similarly, the consumption has increased from
66,000 tonnes in 1952-53 to 143 lakh tonnes in 1996-97. The use of fertilisers
has helped in increasing the grain input of the country to the extent that we
are self-sufficient in its production, and in times of natural calamities like
drought, we are able to meet our food requirements from domestic sources only.
This is the positive aspect of the use of fertilisers.
However,
the negative aspect of the whole thing is that our production of fertilisers, as
the report card itself projects, is not economical. The subsidies, which are
being paid to the fertiliser industry are enormous. The report also admits that
India has no comparative advantage in the production of fertilisers. Therefore,
to keep the fertiliser units viable the government has been paying huge
subsidies to this sector. The
available data show that the amount of subsidy being paid to fertiliser units
has increased from Rs 505 crore in 1981 to Rs 6,093 crore in 1996-97, which is
almost 12 times the subsidy in 1980-81; on the imported fertiliser the subsidy
has gone up from Rs 335 crore to Rs 1,350 crore while that of subsidy on the
domestic sector has risen from Rs 117 crore to Rs 4743 crore. This amount of
subsidy is playing havoc with the state finances. This is a real drain on the
Central funds. All the attempts in the past have not been successful in curbing
the subsidies on fertilisers. The important point that has to be remembered is
that we have gained self-sufficiency in grain production at a very high cost.
This amount of subsidy is unsustainable.
The
fertiliser units require a lot of LPG to run them. Since we have no sufficient
reserves of LPG we are being forced to import LPG at a very high cost. The
important question that we have to ask is that if the country has no comparative
advantage in the production of fertilisers then why should we not close down the
fertiliser units and meet our requirements from imports? It would turn out to be
much cheaper and we will not be forced to pay a subsidy of Rs 6,000 crore year
after year. The
other important aspect is that since India has large reserves of coal, why can
the coal energy not be harnessed to reduce the production cost of fertilisers?
There is also an environmental aspect to the fertiliser industry. Indiscriminate
use of fertilisers by farmers is also making vast tracts of agricultural land
useless. Though the ministry is aware of the damage being caused to the
environment by the use of fertilisers, not much has been done to tackle this
situation. Another
important question is: do we really need to use fertilisers on such a large
scale to increase our agricultural output? As studies by many economists have
shown that better use of irrigation water can achieve the same result at a much
lesser cost. One economist has worked out that if the fertiliser subsidy
budgeted for 1997-98 is used for sinking wells, it could generate capacity to
irrigate at least three million hectares of land and that within less than three
years the additional output due to increased irrigation would more than
compensate the loss of output due to the increased prices of fertilisers and the
consequent reduction in its use. This is an important issue which needs to be
discussed seriously at all levels. Along
with the use of fertilisers has come the use of pesticides and insecticides
which have become health hazards in a big way. Though the fertiliser industry is
aware of the problems being faced by consumers, it has not done much to reduce
the consumption of fertilisers. The
ministry is aware of the hazards posed to people’s health by fertilisers,
pesticides, etc, and is, therefore, encouraging research on bio-fertilisers. But
it is moving very slowly in that direction. The ministry can however, play an
important role by encouraging research on bio-fertilisers and reducing their
dependence on important fertilisers.
The other drawback from the use of fertilisers is that its different varieties need to be combined in appropriate proportion with other fertilisers like potash, which is not manufactured in India at the moment. The indiscriminate use of urea without potash could damage the productivity of agricultural land in the long run. In this connection the ministry has happily set up an expert committee to prepare the R&D road-map for the fertiliser industry and also monitor its progress. This needs to be taken up seriously.
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