The government is set to launch a pilot to link the demand for subsidised fertilisers from farmers to their land holdings, minister for chemicals and fertilisers JP Nadda said in Parliament on Tuesday. This marks an initiative to curb the rising subsidy bill, which has turned out to be one of the big fiscal concerns of the government in recent years.
The idea is to rationalise the beneficiary pool and prevent diversion of the highly subsidised soil nutrients to the grey market.
What did Nadda say?
“We are taking a pilot project where we are trying to see to it that the land area you (farmers) have and the fertiliser you want to have or asking for (have a correlation) . We are providing subsidised fertiliser to farmers. He (farmer) has the capacity to use 10 bags, but he is taking 50 bags. This has to be taken into consideration,” Nadda said in Rajya Sabha.
Nadda’ comment comes after the government is considering several measures to promote balanced use of fertilizers. Skewed usage of the nutrients is leading to degradation of soil, besides inflating government’s subsidy spending.
The government supplies around 60 million tonne (MT) of highly subsidised fertilisers annually to farmers out of which around 18% is met through imports. In 2024-25, the government’s urea subsidy spending was Rs 1.91 lakh crore.
Govt advises states to reduce the use of fertilizers
At present, under the central scheme PM Programme for Restoration, Awareness Generation, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother-Earth PM-PRANAM, the Government has advised states to reduce over use of chemical fertilizers and adopt integrated nutrient management practices to maintain soil fertility and ensure optimum plant nutrient supply for sustainable productivity.tilisers
In August, the fertilizer ministry had stated in parliament that fourteen states have reported a reduction of 1.51 MT in their combined fertilizer consumption in 2023-24 over the average in the previous three years.
This has been achieved under the PM Pranam, which aims at cutting subsidies and incentivising states for balanced use of chemical social nutrients
Fertilizer imports are projected to jump 41% in FY26
India’s fertiliser imports is projected to increase by over 41% to 22.3 million tonnes (MT) in the 2025-26 due to a surge in domestic demand following robust monsoon rains, the fertilizer association of India (FAI) said on Tuesday.
The world’s second largest consumer of fertilizers, had imported 14.45 MT during April-October 2025-26, an increase of close to 69% from 8.56 MT a year earlier, it stated.
“There has been an increase in imports of fertilisers because of a sudden spurt in domestic demand because of good rains,” S Shankarsubramanian, chairman, FAI said in a briefing.
At present fertilizer stocks stood at 10.2 MT against 9.97 MT a year ago including 5 MT of urea, 1.7 MT of DAP and 3.5 MT of NPK fertilisers, he said.
Shankarsubramanian, who is also managing director of Coromandel International, said India has contracted large volumes in the last two months to import soil nutrients and there are no supply constraints.