The government is aiming to increase the current annual production capacity of nano urea from the 50 million bottle (550 ml each) to 440 million bottles by 2025, a plan which would help to end costly imports of the soil nutrient variety, a senior official with the department of fertilisers said.

“We are setting up 10 plants which would manufacture 440 million bottles of nano urea annually by 2025 which potentially is equivalent to 20 million tonne (MT) of conventional urea,” Arun Singhal, secretary, department of fertiliser, told FE.

Two plants with manufacturing capacities of 60 million bottles each would take the country’s annual production capacity of nano urea to 170 million bottles by 2023, which is equivalent to 7.5 MT of urea.

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Singhal said out of 35 MT of annual urea demand, potentially 20 MT can be replaced by nano urea. “Even if that does happen to the fullest extent in the next couple of years, the urea imports will be ruled out by 2025,” he said.

Out of total annual demand of 35 MT of urea, close to 29 MT is domestically produced and rest is imported.

The commercial production of nano urea commenced on August 1, 2021, by India Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF). Soil nutrient in liquid form provides nitrogen to plants as an alternative to conventional urea. A 500 ml bottle of nano urea is equivalent to a 45 kg bag of conventional urea.

Officials said the efficiency of nano urea is more than 80% as compared to around 40% of conventional urea. Use of nano urea increases yield by 3-16%.

Nano urea manufacturing plants are being set up by IFFCO as well as two state-owned firms RCF and National Fertilisers Limited. Developed and patented by IFFCO, the technology has been transferred to these two state owned enterprises free of cost.

Nano urea has been provisionally included in fertiliser control order, 1985 based on the preliminary experiments trials undertakings in several Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state agricultural universities.

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Fertiliser minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently stated that with the inclusion of Nano Urea in the monthly supply plan of the states by the department, its availability and reach to the farmers would increase manifold. He has directed the department officials for promotion of Nano urea in mission mode to harness its benefits.

In a directive, the centre has directed fertiliser companies along with the state government to actively promote the use of Nano urea amongst the farmers. According to a directive by the fertiliser ministry, Nano urea has emerged as a powerful alternative to conventional urea, the increased use would result in financial savings to farmers. It would also increase crop productivity and reduce India’s dependence on urea imports and reduce subsidy burden.

Meanwhile, the government is aiming to introduce nano-DAP (diammonium phosphate), another variety of soil nutrient by 2023 kharif season. “All field trial have been completed and data have been submitted to agriculture ministry”, Singhal said. According to Iffco, “when sprayed on leaves, nano urea easily enters through stomata and other openings and is assimilated by the plant cells. It is easily distributed through the phloem from source to sink inside the plant as per its need. Unutilized nitrogen is stored in the plant vacuole and is slowly released for proper growth and development of the plant.”