Despite the rising costs of raw materials and imports, the fertiliser availability for the 2026 kharif season remains ‘comfortable’, with stocks exceeding 51% of the total requirement of 39 million tonne (MT), a fertiliser ministry official said on Monday.

“There is a small shortfall which we hope to cover in the coming months,” Aparna S Sharma, additional secretary, department of fertiliser, said here.

Domestic fertiliser production is around 80,000 tonne per day, with output since the onset of the West Asia crisis at 8.62 MT – 5.21 MT (urea), 0.7 MT (di-ammonium phosphate), 1.73 MT (NPK) and 0.97 MT (SSP). This is slightly below the 9.3 MT recorded in the year-ago period.

Diversifying import routes away from Hormuz

Currently, urea plants are running at 96% of their capacities because of restoration of LNG supplies. India has been actively diversifying import routes away from the Strait of Hormuz, with over 2.2 MT of fertilisers already landed on Indian shores. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz since February has led to severe disruption in supplies of raw materials like LNG and finished products of soil nutrients.

Through a consortium-based procurement approach, the country has secured approximately 1.35 MT of DAP and 0.7 MT of NPK complex, besides ammonium sulphate, phosphate, and other raw materials, the official said. Fertiliser subsidy seen at Rs 2.3 – Rs 2.4 lakh crore for FY27

On the spike in fertiliser subsidy outgo, Sharma noted that subsidy bill will go up, “but what percentage is something I cannot say and the department is regularly paying all the subsidy bills raised by the companies on a weekly basis,”. Earlier official sources had stated the fertiliser may subsidy rise to Rs 2.3 – Rs 2.4 lakh crore in the current fiscal from a budget estimate of Rs 1.77 lakh crore.

In FY26, the expenditure towards fertiliser subsidies was Rs 2.17 lakh crore-`1.42 lakh crore for urea and Rs 74,999 crore for nutrient-based subsidy. This was an increase of 17% over the revised estimate of Rs 1.86 lakh crore. This, according to officials, was due to the rise in fertiliser prices from March 2026.

Sharma also said that the increase in global prices would not impact farmers, and the maximum retail price of the commodity in the Indian market would remain intact.

Urea continues to be sold at Rs 266.50 per 45 kg bag against global prices exceeding Rs 4,000 a bag. Despite the global price fluctuations, the retail price of DAP is maintained at Rs 1,350 per 50 kg bag for farmers. according to the official.