The Centre has taken various initiatives to boost the fertiliser sector so that adequate amount of fertilisers can be made available to farmers.
The government has started reviving closed fertiliser units of the Fertiliser Corporation of India (FCIL) at Ramagundam, Talcher, Gorakhpur & Sindri and HFCL unit at Barauni.
This is a joint venture of nominated PSUs to set up gas-based fertiliser plants of 1.27 million tpa capacity each.
The overall progress of fertiliser unit at Ramagundam is 99.58 percent and the unit is at pre-commissioningstage.
The overall progress of Talcher fertiliser unit is 59.48 percent and the project is expected to be commissioned by 2023, while progress of Gorakhpur fertiliser unit stood at 88.10 percent with likely commissioning by 2021.
Apart from this, Sindri fertiliser unit is progressing well with 77.80 percent and Barauni fertiliser unit at 77.60 percent. Both the units are expected to be commissioned by 2021.
A decision was also taken to infuse Rs 900 crore in Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) for modernisation.
Under the provisions of New Investment Policy-2012 and its amendment in 2014, Chambal Fertilizers & Chemicals (CFCL) has set up a brownfield project at Gadepan, Rajasthan, with a production capacity of 12.7 lakh tpa urea. The commercial production commenced on 1 January 2019 which helped in producing 244.55 lakh tpa indigenous urea in the country during 2019-20.
As per Modified New Pricing Scheme (NPS-III), all of the units which are using naphtha as feedstock would be converted on natural gas.
Madras Fertilisers has already moved from naphtha feedstock to natural gas. After getting pipeline connectivity, this unit has started producing urea with effect from 29 July 2019 on natural gas feedstock.